Recent content by Arlen

The active ingredient in Beano, alpha galactosidase, is incredibly hardy and can leave the beer very, very dry. The only way to drop it out would be to boil the beer for a short time once I am close to the desired gravity. Now, as far as losing the flavour/alcohol content of the beer, this is...

Update: My Stout finished up in the primary on Sunday morning so I racked it over to a secondary to clarify a bit. I racked the Barleywine on to the established yeast cake from the stout, added some beano and gave it all a really thorough mix. As of this morning the Barleywine is bubbling away...

O.K. I proofed and added two packs of US-05 which someone on another forum recommended for barleywines. Made sure it was well aerated, stirred everything up and pitched the yeast. Nada. Not a bubble. Nothing. (This was all yesterday, btw.) I'll give it a couple of days to see if anything kicks...

Awesome. Thanks for the advice. I'll do what I can to get it going and try to get into the habit of keeping wort on hand for re-hydrating yeast. BTW, it was ambient temperature for the yeast. Not too hot.

Yeah, I thought that might be an issue, hence wanting to stay away from Champagne yeast at least until bottling. When I pitched it was from a dry packet and I wanted to retain as many of the cells as possible so I just proofed it in about four cups of warmish water with about a quarter cup of...

O.K. I brewed this Barleywine in early May. The rough recipe is below and it’s based on a couple of different recipes for a good, big barleywine. I used nice, fresh ingredients. 6 lbs Amber LME 6 lbs Amber LME(late addition) 1 lbs Caramel 120 8 oz Chocolate Malt 1 lbs Corn Sugar 2oz...

Fantastic, thanks! The beer is fermenting away and is the first beer I've ever had to use a blowoff tube on. Fingers crossed it tastes as good as it smells in a few months time!

I ordered some Clarity ferm through Northern Brewer with the expectation it'd be delivered on a Saturday while I was home. (Because that's what the UPS website said.) It arrived in my city very early on Saturday morning but wasn't delivered until today. It has been sitting at my front door in...

See, I thought that might be the case but I didn't want to buy the wrong stuff and end up with a beer that was, say, far crisper than I had planned. Thanks for the help. Can I dump the powdered stuff into the wort or should I go ahead and mix it with water/heat as if I were making my...

Between Rice Syrup solids and Brown Rice syrup? They're both listed as adding crispness and body to the beer. One of them is a lot more expensive than the other. Obviously I'd like to buy the much cheaper Rice syrup solids but I want my beer to be great so I'll buy the more expensive stuff if...

Fantastic. Thanks! I actually just got off the phone with Lee at Chestnut trails and he was really helpful. What a nice guy! I might switch up the recipe a bit and use Corn Sugar instead of honey just because I do have a bit of a time constraint. My aim is to get the darkest beer I can...

O.K. I'm putting together a beer that I wan to get brewed and ready to drink for Passover. As such, time is of the essence. Now just for understanding - there are certain grains that can't be used during Passover. So I'm putting together a Chestnut brew that I think will make a half decent Beer...

I'm a big pipe smoker myself and have turned many friends on to the hobby. I only have a modest collection of pipes at the moment but all of them are well loved and used regularly. I'll often pair different tobaccos with beers. (A friend of mine even created a cocktail to go with Black...

I've added a list below of what I believe the ingredients in this kit are. It's a fairly standard one though I'll, of course, not follow the kit instructions exactly. (Likely going to at least do a secondary fermentation so that it needs less time to age in the bottles.) At any rate, I really...

Awesome, thanks. I'm looking forward to brewing with the windsor since it seems like it'll be a pretty good universal. (Since I have to buy it in bulk.)