Recent content by bitteral

The extra 15 minutes of boil would increase your hop utilization. So the beer may be a little more bitter than it would otherwise have been. I guess it is reasonable for the second addition of extract to go through a hot break if it is being boiled. One thing you might want to consider is...

Both batches used 7 lbs LME, so that is a bit more than 1/2 g volume. I did end up factoring it in, and made a minor adjustment to the hops based on that. Thanks for the quick replies.

Help. I just realized that I always fill my brew pot to the target boil volume, and then add the extracts on top of that. But now I realize that adding several pounds of extract raises the volume. So when I compute hop utilization, should I use the volume before the LME, or the volume after the...

I just received the Fat Tire Clone extract kit from AHS. When I plug in the ingredients into BeerSmith, the computed IBUs are 16.5. Does that sound right? The hop schedule is: 1 oz Northern Brewer - alpha 5.7% - 60 min 2/3 oz Williamette - alpha 4.5% - 15 min 1/3 oz Williamette - alpha...

From John Palmer's book: "Steeping specialty grain is like making tea. The crushed grain is soaked in hot 150 - 170°F degree water for 30 minutes. Even though a color change will be noticeable early on, steep for the entire 30 minutes to get as much of the available sugar dissolved into the...

The picture is so polished (great!) and the colors are excellent. I think the rise and fall of the letters in "Strawberry Blonde" takes away from the polished look, i.e. I'm recommending a completely uniform alignment of the letters. Definitely a very nice label in any case.

What a surprise to see a poster from Oil City. Some of my roots back to great grandparents go there. Some of the more recent generation is around the Butler area now. Brings back some good memories. I moved to northern Virginia in 1986, but still come back home to visit my parents in that...

In Palmer's book, he lists that <b>over-aeration</b> as a possible source of fusel alcohols, as well. That really surprised me, but I just found it in his book this past weekend. In my case, I'm really thinking that might be the cause of the somewhat strong alcohol taste in a couple of my...

Unless someone suggests otherwise, looks like I'm going for the following: 1.2 Cascade 6% - 60 min 0.5 Cascade 6% - 30 min 0.5 Cascade 6% - 15 min 0.5 EKG 6% - 15 min I added the 0.5 EKG to get the IBUs up to the desired area. The last addition has to be made from some leftovers that I...

I do have a total of 2 oz Cascade. So I'm guessing that this might be a better way to go if I want to get something more like the original recipe: 1.0 Cascade 6% - 60 min 0.5 Cascade 6% - 30 min 0.5 Cascade 6% - 15 min Right?

Quick question about hop substitution: I was preparing to make a pale ale today, Palmer's Lady Liberty, and as I was getting set up, realized that I don't have any Northern Brewer, which the recipe calls for as a bittering hop: 0.5 NB 11% - 60 min 0.5 Cascade 6% - 30 min 1.0 Cascade 6% - 15...

Excellent labels.

Yooper, looks good. I'd like to try this one too. What's your boil volume? Or better yet, what's your target IBUs? TIA

Since you are living in an apartment, I'll assume you are doing a partial boil, i.e. 3 gallons or so, instead of a full boil of 6 or more gallons. In that case, you can cool your wort pretty efficiently in 30-45 minutes by placing the pot in an ice-water bath. I typically use a couple of bags of...

Even just a more vigorous shake for aeration might really do the trick.