Recent content by AaronKeller

Didn't read through all these wonderful stories, so maybe this one's been posted already, but here it goes. At the end of a long boil on an dry stout, I turned on the water to my trusty copper coil immersion chiller and went back inside to get the carboy ready. Came back out a few minutes...

I've found that for certain styles, racking my beer to a secondary will decrease the time it takes the beer to clear. I have experienced strange bitter flavors following a long period in the primary (about 8 weeks). I can't be certain they were from sitting on the trub/yeast cake but they...

From my own experience and talking it over down at the brewshop, here are a few tips: Keep wort temp very high (80 degrees!) during the lag time. Lacto likes high temps and will produce more acid in this range. Lag time will be high (up to 72 hours) because I'm assuming the White Labs...

"Relax, have a homebrew". You'll be fine, but no need for gravity reading 15 hours into it. Patience grasshopper

I'm curious how that turns out. It would be a good experiment to split the batch into two at bottling. Add more Lactobacillus to half and leave the other half as control. Or even better. . .split it into thirds and prime 1/3 with corn/table sugar plus Lacto, 1/3 with DME plus Lacto, and 1/3...

Yeah, I really think the key to the Wyeast blend is holding at very high temps (80 degrees) for the Lacto until you see the Sac kick in. I held mine at 78 to 80 for 2.5 days until I saw bubbling and then brought the temp down to 66 over the course of a day. I just bottled after it sat in...

Did you get your score sheet back yet? I'm curious if the judges thought it was appropriate for the category. I see that Imperial Porter is specifically listed as appropriate for 23, so I guess the question is, does the oak aging take precedence over the "experimental" nature of the base beer...

Funny you should mention that, because this imperial porter was originally intended to be an imperial stout but I spaced out during the brew and didn't add the roast barley to the mash. . . otherwise its the same recipe. As a result, I think it really lacks that distinct coffee-like roasty...

I've got a very strong Imperial Porter (beyond style guidelines for a Baltic) that I have aged on oak and am confused about the appropriate BJCP category for an upcoming comp. 22C because of the oak? or 23A because the base beer is not covered by any other category? Any advice would be...

Good news. After just a few days my gravity is down to 1.006 and there is a strong sourness already present. I think keeping the initial temps near 80 for the first 2 days in the primary may have done the trick. As a possible consequence of the high temps, the yeast have put off some strong...

I almost wish I could get that much acidity given the lack of acidity problems experienced by others with berliner weisse blend. . ..but I understand the point. The Saccharomyces fermentation kicked in this morning and I subsequently dropped the temp down in the 70 degree range to avoid any...

I bought the last package of this year's Wyeast berliner weisse blend from my homebrew store, and brewed one up yesterday. After much online research of questionable reliability, its clear that the main problem folks are having with the style is failing to get enough lactic acid out of the...