Recent content by danthebugman

There are a number of different things you can do with adding apple juice to a beer. However, I would steer clear of using it in the mash. I believe heating the mash can lead to some issues with pectin. Also since the juice contains sugar it will make it harder to rinse all the sugars from...

I also use wide mouth canning jars and the vacuum sealer attachment. Works great and super easy.

How long is "months" ago? Also how are they being stored? They typically turn a brownish color as they age. If they look the color of peanut butter they're toast, but a light tan should still be good.

I've done the same as the reverend Maynard and had good results. It takes a little longer to get going on the stirplate, but does fine still.

Have you considered banking some? There was a really good how to on here about freezing yeast that makes it simple.

If it were me, I would just use the starter because I'm comfortable doing that kind of thing and experience has shown me that the beer should turn out fine. That said, if you're squeamish about it then I'd just say pitch the packet and sleep better. Either way you'll make beer. :mug:

I bought a 23qt and love it, but I also use it for canning veggies and various other tasks. Was easier to appease the wife with another brewing item, lol. I got mine used on eBay for about half what they are new. Had to replace the seal, but still a great deal.

Here's my dual stir plate rocking out some recent yeast experiments.

As with many topics related to home brewing, you're going to get a variety of answers. You're going to have to be the one that finds out what works for you. There are pluses and minuses to everything. I'm right there with you though, making starters has always felt like a hassle to me. What...

I ran some numbers and my cost per plate is about $0.25. Compared to paying $2.69 a plate from the link above and you can see there is quite a cost savings. I am intrigued by the vacuum sealing, will have to try that one of these times.

I use ice packs in a Styrofoam cooler as fermentation control, but still have to change out the ice packs at least once a day depending on what I'm fermenting. Your best bet would be to replace the fridge, but that's probably not easy to do on such short notice. If you can cool the fridge...

Even with an ale yeast a lot of people will bump up the temperature towards the end of fermentation a little to encourage the yeast to finish fermenting and clean up after itself. Another option if you wanted to stick with a lager yeast in the future is to do something like Saflager 34/70 at an...

I make my own. It's not really all that hard and probably costs less than half of what they're charging. Plus it's fun! Though if you don't want to bother that's probably a decent price.

I imagine it's a bit late for my $0.02 to be useful, but maybe for someone down the road it might help... I use Beersmith on my Kindle all the time. I use it for recipe formulation and also on brew day for tracking stuff. That said I do do quite a bit of calculations by pen and paper also...

I'd vote SMaSH as well. Makes for a simple and tasty beer. That said, since you've got some extract brews under your belt you might consider brewing an all grain version of something you've made with extract. You'll already be familiar with how it turned out previously so that may help you...