Recent content by brown_dog_brews

OP here... Well, I have been getting in the upper 60's, usually around 68%; so pretty terrible. But, yes, I have been increasing my grain bills a little and also using any DME I might have on hand...particularly if after 30 min in the boil my SG isn't looking great. HOWEVER, the beers...

This should be an easy one and I'm just now having the "ah-ha" moment, I just need some solid experience to verify. So, I have been batch sparging and making great beers but I kept having tons of sparge water left over after filling my kettle for boil...and THUS having terrible efficiency and...

Interesting concept. Thanks for the reply. I'll try to update with results but here's what I did: I boiled about 3/4 cup of water, turned down heat and added about 6 oz of lactose to keep it pretty warm. I then peeled, de-pitted and puréed 1 lbs of fresh apricots and added them to the slurry. I...

Well, I feel like it would at least combat the thin mouthfeel and lay a little better foundation if I add the apricot. Thoughts?

Oops, wrong answer...I see what you're saying. On the flip side, most of my ale yeast strains get that way when fermented too high. Honestly, a lot of that might age out also.

Yep. Each strain of yeast is designed to impart different flavor profiles...it makes sense that each one will react differently to temperature.

WLP530 is a tricky yeast. It really reacts to quick temperature fluctuations. I'm not surprised it dropped out a bit. My suggestion is to slowly warm it back up a bit. Belgians are supposed to have phenols and I've seen folks raise temps to the 80's with Belgian yeast strains. As far as your...

I think it's all in the temperature control. I'm convinced that for most ales you need to ferment between 60-65 and not much higher. Your Belgians are different obviously and are supposed to have that phenolic taste so the saison doesn't surprise me.

So here I stand on the precipice... I've brewed a pretty standard issue pale ale w/ pale malt and wyeast 1056. Honestly my intention is to make an apricot pale ale and rack this beer on top of about 2 lbs of apricot purée. Right now, primary is finished and has left me at 1.006 and is quite...

First of all: First time poster, long time reader. Love the knowledge on this forum. So here's the deal. I brewed my first 5 gal all grain batch this weekend as I just purchased a 6 gal better bottle. To this point, for almost a year now, I've been brewing 2.5 gal batches in Mr beer fermenters...