Recent content by davefleck

At the risk of upsetting the site's grand matriarch... The "expert" male opinions are often (at least in my case) earned through years of trying to expand our better half's enjoyment of the world of beer we love so much. That and personal experience. A PA sure wasn't what broke me into craft ale.

Many of the Belgian brewers use the same strain of yeast for all their beers. Go ahead and run with it

As long as your post is I'm surprised you couldn't come up with another reason. What I'd you want to use that yeast cake to eat up another batch? Especially a high OG batch. It's like a 5 gal starter. I almost always do this when making big beers as it can be challenging to make a large...

Only worthy response to this typical one is that another favorite hobby will be the cause of your blindness. A good chuckle will make the following 7hr lecture on beer easier for him/her to take in

Roasted malts are easier on the taste buds than bitter alpha acids of pale ales and IPA

My (and others here) stirstarter required some tweaking. The magnets weren't strong enough and kept tossing the stir bar. Got a couple rare earth magnets from Ace and added it to the ones provided. Keep in mind if you have issues. They may have corrected this

A bean isn't going to go far. Growler size batch?

If you don't have equipment to make starters brew a lower gravity beer with the same yeast and reuse the yeast cake. It will have no problem chewing up all those sugars. A stir plate might be a great Xmas request

Cold brew in a French press

To be considered "imperial" the beer must be anointed by one of royal blood. Send a couple bombers my way and should it make me smile such honor shall be bestowed.

Never had a bad experience with STG. Been a customer since 2007 shop mills are so heavily used you always run the risk of a poor crush. Always inspect your crush be it done on your mill or others. If it isn't your mill some bloke before you may have misadjusted it or ran Belgian candy sugar...

Please someone smarter correct me but wasn't the blending done traditionally at the pub? Some old with the new. And post harvest some fresh fruit. Of course this was prior to large scale bottling lines I'd imagine there are nuances lost when it's blended a while before consumption

Most often I use old GABF glasses. Pretty much for anything but coffee

Recently tapped my first sour also a Flanders brown. Quite amazing. I used 3" of an oak spiral and it gave a nice subtle undertone. I gave it a ton of time, 2.5 yrs. the best part is how few enjoy the style so I know I will have it for quite some time to savor. Enjoy!

One way to resolve a stuck fermentation is to transfer to a secondary vessel. A little kick up in temp can help if you are on the low end of the range. The best way is to avoid it all together by making sure to use a healthy size starter and to blast the wort with O2. And again don't let it...