Recent content by CADragon

To boost the spicy-ness a just a bit after fermentation, I sanitized a hop sock and threw some more sliced ginger and a cinnamon stick in the bottling bucket. It sat right near the spigot so all the beer flowed right through into the bottles. Gave it some great fresh spiced flavor, and I...

How are people processing the ginger? I'm thinking of using a "hop bag" for the ginger and cinnamon to make it easy to separate. Should the ginger be sliced? chopped? micro-planed?

My mini-fridge was left open overnight, and my smackpack was in the door. It was room temp for 8-12 hours. It's cooling down again, but will this have any long term effect? I'm going to make a starter on Thursday, will it be obvious if anything went bad? Thanks! Tim

It is a swivel aerator I'm working with, and there's not enough of a lip to turn by hand (see pic-the tiny knurled ring is it), and I guess it's not a pipe wrench, but locking pliers. Same idea, they really cut into the aerator every time. Never thought of doing something under the sink, I do...

Brewing in an apartment, my kitchen sink is the only water source available. Every time I want to use my bottle cleaner or immersion chiller, I pull out the pipe wrench to change out the aerator, and I'm worried doing this every week will take its toll on the sink. What do other non-slop sink...

I bought some Munton's Carb Tabs to carbonate one bottle in order to experiment with spicing levels in a Pumpkin Ale. The tabs worked great! Fully carbed in 3 days. It's a little more expensive, but with better control over carb levels, I'm considering using them for a full batch. My...

My beer is done fermenting, but it's pretty murky. I don't have a refrigerator available, but my carboy is in a circular tub about 3' tall. Can I just throw 20 pounds of ice in there? My concern is that it will cool down and then the temperature will rise again until I bottle next weekend...

I bought 2 cans of Oregon peach puree for a wheat beer, and I only ended up needing to use 1. Is the shelf life on cans of puree the same as any other canned good? It should be fine in a drawer (indoors, 70F) until next summer, right? Or should I plan to use it sooner? Thanks!

I didn't think about the spice flavor fading, I guess I'll have to do some research on approximately how much I'll need beforehand.

I don't plan on it. From what I've read, this is the easiest way to control how much spice is in your end product. It's also possible to lose some aromatics when you boil.

I’m going to be brewing a (pumpkin) spice ale for the fall and could use some advice with spicing. I’m going to steep the spices in vodka, so two things: 1. I bought fresh whole spices (allspice, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg); do I want to crush them first (mortar and pestle)? 2. Is there a...

If I'm lazy and don't feel like sanitizing the bung and airlock, does it really make a difference for a 7-10 day fermentation if you leave the blow-off tube the whole time?

Some recipes I've seen have 6 lbs. of the puree, would that be too much? According to Mosher in Radical Brew, peaches don't come through fermentation that well.

Yeah, I bottled with boiled priming sugar in a bucket, and it looks like those could have been the last two bottles (or just one took out the other). Now I have to clean sticky broken glass off the rest of the bottles, what precautions do people take? I have safety glasses, obviously. Should...

I bottled some weizenbock last week, and found out two bottles bombed sometime this week (my first bombs after many batches, so proud). So, should I expect the rest to blow? The other bottles I've sampled taste good, should I not enter them into a competition as planned? (Don't wanna hurt any...