Recent content by ersheff

Room temp, which in my un-airconditioned apartment could have been anywhere between 65-80F. Now I have a basement, so that should stabilize to 65-70F.

Well, there were no chloramines in Madison's water (at the time, anyway). But you may be right that that water overall wasn't great. I doubt that the yeast was still working, but it's certainly possible! I wasn't very good about checking gravity levels as it progressed. I just waited the usual...

Yo! Thanks for the responses. It's definitely not sour or skunky. I'd recognize skunky from what Corona and Heineken taste like. :) The water for these particular batches was 1 part city of Madison, WI tap water (left overnight to gas off Chlorine) to 3 parts RO water (a mix recommended by the...

Hey, y'all. So, my problem's in the title. I brew partial mash and all-grain, usually 2.5 gallon batches (due to stovetop boil limitations) though my most recent one was a 5 gallon partial. Anyway, I've got 2 finished beers in bottles. One is a cream ale that was good but not great...

I know these things have already been mentioned, but the fivehead (soon to be sixhead) and grays in the beard are the best visual indicators. I'm only 31. I actually kind of like the grays (bring 'em on!) and don't mind a bit of a receding hairline, but at the rate it's going now, I expect to be...

I had some small gauge hoops/plugs from freshman year of college up until about 5 years ago. The damn things would still get irritated once in a while and crusty, even though it had been a long time since I last stretched them. Didn't seem to matter if I had stainless steel or acrylic in them...

I can't complain too much about my current living situation, though I'm amazed how well I can hear things through the "concrete" walls and floors. The guy below me has tourette's or Asperger's or something and laughs non-stop, 24/7. It's this creepy cackle that my girlfriend has accurately...

I have had beer from and/or been to all the breweries mentioned so far in this forum. Without hesitation, my #1 recommendation is Central Waters in Amherst. Their beer in bottles is so-so (6 packs anyway). At the brewery- they blew my mind a little bit. I suspect that they don't have a great...

Yeah, this opened my eyes a bit. After a bit more searching, now I'm really intrigued by this ferment-in-the-kettle thing. Someone should come out with a commercial version of that, with clamps and silicone lining for an airtight seal on the lid... Of course, there's always DIY, but I'm...

Wow, nice. Yeah, I have never seen those before. That's pretty much perfect! Looks like you can still fit an arm through that neck for cleaning.

I take it back. I searched a bit more and found a few people that do exactly that: brew and then ferment in the same kettle. Sweet... This obviously ties up a kettle, but even 3 decent SS kettles is much cheaper than a conical. Any other input?

Hi. I'm sure this has been asked before as it's a question that's been rattling around in my head for a while. Why doesn't anyone make some sort of option between the low-end ($10-45 for plastic buckets and carboys) and high-end ($600+ for a stainless steel conical) fermenters? Am I just missing...

A few things I learned: -Experiment slowly. The guy I started brewing with at the end of 2011 only wants to make weird stuff. This would be fine if we had a few years of experience under our belts. Now that I'm brewing on my own, I don't have to go as wild as he wants. But I still let other...

I'm still pretty low tech, so I don't have a fermentation chamber or even a digital thermometer (mine was giving crazy readings, so I went with what I figured was a more reliable analog model). Anyway, finally got a tub for a swamp cooler since my last 2 beers tasted like ass. Made a smoked...

I made a stout with nibs soaked in bourbon last winter. While the nibs absorbed a lot more bourbon than I'd expected them to, there didn't seem to be much if any bourbon flavor in the finished beer. I'd guess that the rum flavor would be barely perceptible.