Recent content by HickoryMike

Crazy things the LHBS has told me over spring break: 1. Don't place ANYTHING in your bucket, because it will cause microscopic scratches that will ruin your beer. 2. You need to put check valves on your gas-in lines or they will get full of beer and be ruined. 3. Don't buy the slightly...

One of the drawbacks of moving to Alaska is that Founders isn't on the shelf! They have many great beers.....I would like to add their Red Rye IPA to the list.

Youtube is your friend. Search there or search HBT....there are tons of resources out there. Use mrmalty.com to determine the size of your starter. Basically, a starter is a small, very simple batch of beer used only to grow yeast. You need to use a 1/10 ratio of light dme/water. Boil it...

I just began harvesting and washing yeast to build up my yeast bank. It has been said that you might not want to harvest yeast from a really big beer.....I'm guessing this is because these yeast are stressed and not as healthy. So, how big is too big? I have a stout with an OG of 1.080 that I...

Saw Old Rasputin here in Anchorage the other day. Had that beer on nitrogen before....'twas awesome!

Most people that grow hops aren't trying to save money....it's just really damn cool. I'm looking into growing some here in Anchorage just for fun.

Tubing is cheap. If you have a hardware store or LHBS near by, I would just go get some. It may be mold, it might not be. The risk probably isn't worth it.

Quick disconnects. No question about it.

You don't need an air-tight container.....the bags that the grain come in sure aren't air tight. As long as your grain stays dry, clean, and bug free you'll be fine. I always used big Rubbermaid tubs. Ok, rant over. The container you linked looks cool and it's pretty darn cheap. Nice find.

I'm 99.99999% sure you have corn sugar. Corn sugar is powdery...table sugar is usually granulated.

Craig caught a lot of flack for his early videos that focused on "Simple Brewing" which basically meant mixing a can of extract with water and pitching yeast. Many brew snobs (not necassarily a bad thing to be a brew snob) took offense to Craig's claims that this simple homebrew was as good as...

What kind of yeast are you using? It might not be the best strand for a Saison. In a recent Wyeast video (put out by Northern Brewer) the speaker stated if you rack onto a yeast cake you're basically over-pitching to the extreme. All that being said, you'll still end up with beer in the...

I agree it probably won't make that big of a difference, but if it were me I would go with 2 heavily stirred sparges.

I know what you mean. Kegging made the biggest difference for me. Rather than leaving beer in the bottle for 3+ weeks you can carb and de-gas a beer in about a week. I recently started brewing again after a big move and didn't buy any brewing gear until my kegerator was built. And then, of...

Loved this vid. Many interesting pieces of info. One thing that jumped out to me was that the best way to oxygenate your wort is a 45 sec violent shaking. Also interesting was that shaking for 5 hours will not add any more oxygen then a good 45 second shake.