Recent content by BlindFaith

You can just drop your SANITIZED hydrometer in the bucket to take a reading. It isn't going to hurt your beer to have to top off long enough for a hydrometer reading. I wouldn't suggest taking a reading until after 3 weeks anyway. Those vague and ridiculous instructions are only there to get...

I doubt the foam will be accurate unless you are using a refractometer. You got enough foam to drop a hydrometer in? It floated? You can take a sample before fermentation begins.

SUBterranean Homesick Blues - Bob Dylan

Nowhere Man - The Beatles

You mean the airlock stopper or a solid stopper? You shouldn't dry hop with a sealed stopper as the hops will create gasses that need to escape. I did that a couple weeks ago and I had a lot of pressure behind the stop. It also caused a good bit of foam in my primary. Just use a regular...

Same here for me as far as having no problem when I first started brewing. My first 5 beers were fermented with White Labs with no starter. I to use one now regardless if I am using liquid, but as long as the OP isn't making bigger beers, there shouldn't be a yeast count problem. Of course...

You gotta be patient with some of these batches. I have a lager that is going on 9 weeks in the bottle and it still has a bad acetaldehyde taste with little to no carbonation. I also have an English IPA that is going on 10 weeks and it still isn't completely carbed. It does taste great...

The whole impatience and anxiousness feelings goes away after a while. Once you get a pipeline going you won't even be worried about when to transfer or bottle. My beers stay primary for 4-6 weeks, no secondary, cold crash a couple days for lower SRM beers, and then straight into the bottle...

Just make sure that isn't exposed to any sunlight (I mean zero). You can just wrap it up with a hoodie or blanket. Also, your temp control will eventually become important once you notice how much better it makes your beers. You may have just had your carboy sitting like this for the picture...

You can use distilled water, but it is missing a lot of compounds and nutrients needed for AG beer. You could try using RO water with proper additives from this water chemistry primer: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/

The reason you had more carbonation after a week is that the CO2 that was trapped in the headspace cooled down enough where it went back into the beer. You could have added a little too much sugar if you added the regular 5 oz/5 gal stated everywhere for beginners. You could try carbing to...

Black Star - Radiohead

Titties & Beer - FZ

You can raise the temp up after the initial fermentation (3-6 days), but try to stay below 75F. Your best bottle conditioning temp is 70-75 and a lower temp will cause a slower carb time, but I am not sure it will make for a better tasting beer. My beers sit at 69-73 all the time and the...

I got my volumes from some gourmet cooking website and I used 1.5 cups per 1/3 cup of coffee. It was pretty strong and concentrated at 4.5 cups used.