Recent content by chemicalcraig

Got mine yesterday and threw an ounce in with my other dry hops for a IIPA. When I opened the bag and smelled them I got a dankness reminiscent of columbus. I sucked the air out of the bag to get a "taste" of them and definitely got strawberry/pineapple notes. Almost like a strawberry lemonade...

That's interesting and great news, though contrary to my experiences with them. How accurate is your scale and what portions did you measure?

An IPA, neither English nor American, should be sour. I'm guessing it's an infection. All bottle conditioned beers will have sediment like that, so that's not the problem. How long do you consider to be a long time in the secondary? I've come to the realization that the "secondary" fermentation...

it's not required, but is recommended. By rehydrating you make the cell walls pliable, getting the yeast ready to do their job in a healthy and effective manner. If you sprinkle directly it shocks a lot of the yeast and can effectively decrease the viable cell count. But given the relatively...

Yeah, I think the days of getting overstuffed bags of hops from hopsdirect is long gone. I've been buying from them for a few years now and have never gotten more than 1/4 to 1/2 an ounce over.

I like to keep it relatively simple with: 93% Gambrinus ESB (or your favorite 2 row), 5% Crystal 40, and 2% carapils and ferment with a clean yeast that accentuates hops. Something like 1056, wlp001, or us05. For the hops I usually do 60, 20, and 0 min additions. I try to aim for about 20 IBU...

Picked up a lb with my citra order like everyone else. Description sounds great. I'll brew the single hop pale ale that I use to investigate new hops and report back, as should everyone else. Apparently a local nano, Two Beers, made an IPA with this but I missed it somehow?? Oh well, time to...

Just got my pound! 77 lbs left. You can literally watch the pounds disappear by refreshing the page, it's like watching a doomsday clock. And they technically aren't straight from the farm at Puterbaugh, but from another one in the same general region.

Dump it. Life's too short to drink ****ty beer. This includes good beer that has turned on you.

I usually just throw mine in the compost heap, but you could use about a cup or so to add to a loaf of bread. Most of the nutrients have been stripped and unless you want to dry them out and pulverize them to make flour there isn't much to do with them besides use them as an anecdotal additive...

The flavor will be dramatically different. The darker crystal malts (80-120+) are kilned longer and in my experience have a more toffee or raisiny flavor, while the lighter malts (10-20) have a kind of light malty sweetness, and the mid range (40-60) have a more pronounced caramel-like...

I've been seriously disappointed with everything 21A has made. Everything I've had of theirs, whether it be in a can or on tap, has been off in one way or another, Back in Black is no exception. I really wanted to like them, but in my experience they just can't get it right, and with their...

You should be fine. Warrior is a stable variety and has good storability. I still have some 2009 hops in the freezer that I've been using that still smell fresh as the day they were picked and work just fine. Smell them when you open them. If they smell rotten, or freezer burned, ditch them...

I'm pretty sure it's just a qualitative graph. But even so, I'm not sure why they centered the peak for the aroma where they did. It should be at 0. It should be more like this (disclaimer this is for illustration purposes and is not based on actual data.):