Recent content by Cap'n Jewbeard

I haven't brewed in a while but I remember it being fairly easy to propagate yeast with some malt or honey dissolved in water. Is there any reason you couldn't do the same with bread yeast, since apparently the entire world has decided to buy bread yeast at the same time? I've seen articles that...

Think I'll do a cherry-wheat, since I got some organic tart cherry juice on the shelf. I guess cherry juice in the secondary is the way to go?

Hard to say, theoretically the plastic is vulnerable to scratches which can hide bugs forever, but I seem to recall BetterBottle saying they don't scratch easily. Rather than scrapping the bottle, maybe just fill it up with a bleach solution or some other sanitizer and let it sit for a couple...

I think overall you'll be OK. You used the right amount of priming sugar, so I tend to feel like if you get it nice and cold it'll be fine.

Yeah, that's pretty much the big thing. If you're following any kind of steps as far as temperature changes, you'll want to check every couple of hours when you make the change to make sure it's not going too far in any particular direction. (Of course, if you have a good thermostat, this is not...

Yes, it's the southern german lager yeast. It's been at about mid-70s the last 2 days (just room temp). When I took it out of the fridge there was nothing at all on the surface except maybe a tiny bit of film, so all of that is new.

Sorry, sorry, I promised I'd never post an "Is this infected," but... is it? I'm about to bottle this (or throw it away if it tastes terrible), and here's the deal: It's a lager that's been in the fridge for about 3 months. (This is the same April-zen Oktoberfest that had all kinds of issues...

With no traffic (for example Friday mid-day, like hitting the DC area between 10 and 2) you're better off on the Beltway (495). On a Friday, it starts to get lousy around 3 o'clock. I wouldn't bother waiting until Saturday if you can get through there midday Friday (or late Friday, like after...

So my Sanyo mini-fridge apparently does not have a setting to leave the temps in the mid-30s. You can only go to about 40F, or the mid 20s. I did not know this, and in trying to find the magic mean, I accidentally froze my carboy. Solid. So... what do I do now? Will the beer recover...

I also want to pull for Maryland Homebrew, as I used to live walking-distance from there and have never had a bad experience. However, Annapolis is also very good, nothing bad to say about them either! Whichever is closest to where you'll be is a good bet (both are fairly described as "South of...

I used a quart measuring cup thingy, and tried to let most of the liquid drain out before I dumped the thick mash into the kettle. In hilarious-er news, this beer continues to be a conga-line of trauma and equipment failure. I've been struggling for days to get my lagering fridge in the...

Maybe I have different stuff in my old (thinner) kettle, but how do you know what's beer stone and what's scorch marks? Do they look at all alike?

OP, I feel your pain. I did an annotated brew-day the other day, and the bazooka tube fell off! (The screen came out of the collar that screws onto the valve). So something always can, and sometimes will, go wrong. :)

That's great, thank you! I sense another lager coming on with this new and improved decoction schedule As an update: transferred it to secondary/lagering fridge when it persisted at 1.020, with the fridge set initially at about 48-49F. (By the way, I didn't know it could go that high; next...

These are great! I don't have a whole lot to add, but 2 things might help: One important sub-category of Equipment Loss is the "dead space loss" in your mash tun, i.e. the space where liquid settles below the valve. You can minimize this by (for example) tipping your mash tun at the end of...