Recent content by Aerolithe

Fermentis mentions two of their yeast (T58 and S33) as having particularly good bottling properties, and recommends using them at a rate of .5 to 1 grams per 5 gallons. I've also been reading Brew Like a Monk and decided to try out adding fresh yeast at bottling. I had a beer that was perfect...

I just started brewing, but the time is right to be planting rhizomes and I want to get started now so I can get a good yield in a year or two. My mom has a real green thumb, and is also going to grow some hops for me out at her place (we both live in zone 6). I already ordered some stuff for...

I've been planning a very similar experiment. The LHBS doesn't have as wide a selection as any of the online retailers, but I can reliably get Wheat DME, domestic hops, and Fermentis yeast, and I don't have to be particularly concerned with shelf life. I was planning on a simple 4 gallon wort...

Well, now that there's a chance of success I'd rather keep going and just chalk it up as a learning experience no matter how it turns out. I just didn't want to pitch yeast that I didn't think had an even remote chance of success. I also have a package of Safbrew S-33 dry yeast as a backup if...

I should have known that this was the right answer. When I took it off the shelf to have a good look at things, there was absolutely nothing going on and it was almost crystal clear, obviously very little or no yeast in suspension, but I stirred up some of the sediment. When I checked on it...

no, seems to me that the amount of sediment is the same, and the starter is pretty well clear.

Is the color a concern? All the yeast I've used have been a milky or creamy color. Also, I found it weird that a hefeweizen yeast would have settled out in a matter of hours, I would think even if this was normal for another strain a hefeweizen yeast would have stayed in suspension longer than...

This is my third batch of beer, and the first using liquid yeast. I'm trying to brew a hefeweizen, and I was pretty happy to see that the LHBS had some Wyeast 3068 considering their liquid yeast selection is pretty thin. However, it was just a couple days past the 6 month mark. Decided to take a...

You want to measure the reduction in density that is caused by sugar 'disappearing' through fermentation, but a lot of calculations seem to treat the change in density as sugar disappearing without accounting for the fact that it is actually becoming alcohol, which is less dense than water. For...

Keep in mind that it won't necessarily be off by just a constant. The spacing between marks may not be accurate, either, especially if it isn't in the correct position to begin with (if 1.000 isn't in the right spot), so that it reads 1.005 when its in distilled water, but in a wort that is...

I was under the impression that I should minimize the surface area at the top, so I usually filled them as much as was reasonable knowing that a lot would be lost in the first couple days blowoff. I also heard this was beneficial in that a lot of the nastier stuff in the krausen was removed from...

My first batch of beer is getting bottled tonight, and my second batch is in the primary. Both of them are 2 gallon batches in two 1-gallon jugs. Hoping I can start doing all grain soon since I only have to deal with limited volumes. I make sure to check my hop utilization with the different...

I'm about to bottle my very first batch of beer (American Wheat, although it may not end up being a very typical one), and for a variety of reasons I decided to use two one-gallon jugs as my fermenting vessels. I was originally going to just use a 5 gal recipe that was scaled down to 2 gal...