Recent content by Brewham

I rinse my bottles out as I empty them so there is no dried up crud in the bottom. I run them through the dishwasher on the sanitize cycle with no soap before bottling. I bottle using the dishwasher door for a table. When I am done, I close the door and any spillage goes into the d/w...

This year, I used canned instead of my own baked pumpkin. I put it in a bag but it just oozed out and kind of suspended in the solution. Next year it is back to chunks of baked pumpkin in a grain bag. That was a bit messy but nothing like this.

If you are moving it to a secondary, it won't hurt if it still has some fermenting going on. After two weeks, it is mostly finished if not all finished unless you had it a real cold temps. It is when you bottle that you must be certain it has stopped or you get bottle bombs.

Racking the Pumpkin Ale. Pumpkin Ale is a tough because, in addition to all the normal goop at the bottom from spent yeast, coagulated proteins and hops I have 3 pounds of pumpkin paste to clog the valve and tube. Every time I brew this, I say, "Never again." but my fans insist. Anyone...

My dry hop experience has been "iffy." If I just throw them in, they clog up the valve and tube when I bottle. I put them in a muslin bag to stop that. But, either way and even if I boil the bag, I end up with a filmy white skin on the top that looks like an infection. I'm not convinced dry...

I doubt if you did any harm since you dumped out the solution and only a little bit would have been left clinging to the sides. If you rinsed, you even got rid of that. No need to mix up 5 gallons at a time. In the future, just mix it in a spray bottle and spray everything. A quart of spray...

I would not panic. Fermentation produces all sorts of yucky looking stuff. What does the beer underneath taste like? How long had it been sitting? General rule is to go ahead and bottle when ready and see how it ends up. There is nothing that grows in beer that can hurt you. In 75 batches...

I got lazy and only ran my bottles through the dishwasher (heavy wash, sanitize and no soap). I used Starsan on the buckets, tubing etc. After 50 or so batches, I started getting foamy beers and realized I was infected. Since all the bottles in a batch were foamy, I figured it had to be...

You started out at 1.080 - no way that will finish in a week. Let it sit for several weeks and move it to a warmer spot. What was the alcohol tolerance of the yeast?

25 gallons of nice hot water to clean out your brew pot and rinse out your fermentation bucket.

If you steeped some grains you could have some particles from them floating around. Don't worry about it

That yeast has an attenuation of 74-79% and an alcohol tolerance of 12%. I suspect the yeast will give out before it finishes. And you don't have enough hops to balance out the extra LME. Time to get out the calculator? Can you figure out how much water and hops you need to add to get back...

Food grade or reinforced hose would be severe over-kill for a blow off tube. It has no pressure and everything is flowing away from the fermenter. Just get the cheap clear plastic tubing.

Fermenting beer makes all kinds of weird odors. Wheat beers smell like rotten eggs and you swear you need to throw it out. Relax, let it do its thing. I do think you underpitched. I would have used that much or more for 5 gallons. But, it is not a fatal mistake. A black IPA will take a...

I have heard of baking it into dog biscuits (no hops though). Dogs love it. Mine just goes in the compost pile.