Recent content by evbc

Door, you got it! I'm sure shipping a 5 gallon carboy won't hurt too bad :). Well, we racked the beer yesterday and took a sample. It tasted great! I forgot to take a picture of it in the hydrometer test jar but it is probably our clearest beer to date. I'll make sure to take a picture of the...

Thanks for the quick replies everyone! My wife was a microbiology major and naturally wanted to make sure before we racked it. I'll let her know they are yeast rafts, probably leave the word floater out of it though 😉. It didn't smell bad when I pulled the airlock and I'll report back on...

Hi everyone, We just uncovered an American Amber we've had in secondary to rack it tonight. When we uncovered it we saw this floating on top. I know the pictures don't do them justice but they look like extremely small grains of rice. Can anyone help us identify this? Thanks again for all of...

Thanks! Even after sitting today at 12psi (actually more like 11) I poured a pint and it was not only less foamy it seems to be carbing. Thanks for everyone's input! Regarding the taste, after all of that turmoil and re-working on the fly, it actually tastes great! It definitely has the honey...

I appreciate your help as well Jwood. I turned it down to 12 psi this morning and plan on letting it sit in the kegerator for the next few days and then check on it. What is the proper temperature I should have it at right now and how do you degas? Thanks for answering my noob questions.

Thanks for the feedback Adam. We figured it should be carb'd up by now as well. This recipe has been the ultimate battle from the get-go. We are getting really close on just scrapping this batch and starting over. Every other recipe has been spot on so far. We have a corny keg that is new to us...

Hi everyone, Well it's been over 3 weeks since we kegged the ale and we've been checking it about every week. We racked the beer off of the yeast that had settled in primary right into a keg. We didn't add priming sugar but followed some instructions we had on how to force carbonate. It's...

Thanks for the reply solbes. I did mention chips and cubes, sorry, meant cubes. That's what I purchased. We don't want a strong oak taste just give it a little different flavor with a hint of bourbon and oak. I probably should know this, but what is an RIS?

Thanks for the reply. That's kinda what we were figuring. How long would you soak the oak chips in bourbon before transferring to the beer? Is there a preferred process on how to do this?

Hi all. We just picked up the ingredients to brew our first Belgian Strong Ale (Chimay Grande Reserve clone). As an experiment we were thinking about aging some of it in bourbon soaked oak cubes. Would anyone recommend for/against this? We plan on letting this age for at least 6 months but not...

Good morning. Well after being out of town for a few days I'm back and thinking about this beer again. I was able to read all of the replies and I truly appreciate everyone's feedback. It's really helped me understand the effects of different adjuncts/additives. Adamc, thanks for your succinct...

Thanks for the explanation! I've read (but who knows for sure anymore, my head is spinning) that if enough honey is added it won't all ferment out. Is that true? Don't get me wrong, any beer we brew we are extremely proud of! We just are trying to understand where our results went askew from...

Awesome. I think we found our approach. If we added bourbon would we add it at bottling as well? Thanks a ton to everyone and their input. We'll post the results in a few weeks on how it turned out...

That sounds great. Thanks for the input! Would you do anything to it before racking? Add anything while it's in the fermenter?

Awesome! Now we are talking. We want a light ale with a hint of sweetness (honey) for a bbq we are having for a birthday. Do you notice a honey flavor from priming with honey over sugar? That may be the difference maker. And I like the bourbon idea. It may just make it into the batch... Thanks...