Recent content by freewheelan

The fermentation process blows off a lot of the volatile hop oils released when dry hopping, which is why you should wait for primary fermentation to finish before dry hoping. Foam may indicate where your fermentation is at but then again it may not. Do it off your gravity readings.

Without doubt using wine glasses lets you smell beer a lot better, which is at least part of the fun of drinking a good beer. If you're drinking megaswill lagers obviously there's no point.

If you can, fly sparge. I party gyle whenever I brew a high gravity beer & for mine it's the best way to do it. Also, if the seconds aren't that high in gravity you can either boil it down and have a smaller batch or throw in some extract &/or sugar to boost the beer up.

When I use nibs I put them in a hop bag with a shot glass, tie a bit of dental floss to the bag and then put them in the keg with the dental floss hanging out of the keg (the dental string doesn't affect the seal). After 3 or 4 days I start tasting the beer and when I feel it's ready I take the...

I brewed something very similar to this recipe about 6 months ago. I think it's going to take at least another 6 months before it will mellow out a bit. I mashed at 149 because I thought the yeast would struggle to attenuate properly but I shouldn't have as I can detect a bit of alcohol heat...

I made lambic style beer with mango. I used about 10lbs in a 5 gallons. The yeast ate all the mango flavour. Still a good beer though.

Here's a review on Rodenbach Grand Cru with some great information:

Rodenbach 2007 Vintage Ale, Consecration and Cantillion Lou Pepe 2007 are three of my favourite sours. I've got some of the Rodenbach 2009 Vintage Ale but it doesn't have the same oak as the 2007.

How did this turn out?