Recent content by jacobezzell

How infected? I haven't heard of a good accidentally infected brew.

After a long brew day I had left my wort in the brew pot in the fermenting fridge to finish cooling to pitch temp. Pulled it out at 9:30pm and was getting ready to transfer into the carboy when I saw one little dead insect "doing the backstroke." After some cursing and internal debate I...

I want to use up some hops I have in the freezer for this, not sure which to use. I have Magnum, Saaz, Tettnang, and Target. Tried to use BeerAlchemy to guess on IBUs but not coming close to what is stated in the recipe. I get 54 by putting in the fuggles and goldings, but what's listed is...

Just bottled mine today and only got to 1.018 FG, but had hit 1.051 OG. I mashed in a pot in the oven, so I know I hit 154 on the dot for 60 min. Used WLP002. Fermented at around 68 deg. This was just a 3 gal batch so I didn't make a starter, and it took ~36 hours to start chugging, maybe...

Made this yesterday with some WLP002 I had in the fridge, didn't bother with a starter because I never have with small batches. (2.5 gallon) Of course this is my first batch to not take off after 6-12 hours. :( Guess I'll repitch with some fresh yeast on the morrow if nothing takes off...

just out of curiosity, why boil 90 min if using the pilsner, but 60 if not?

Brettwasbtd- I didn't make a starter, no, Mr Malty's yeast calculator said for my 2.5 gallon batch the one vial was sufficient. Next time I'll just shoot to pitch at my fermenting temp and see how that goes. Thanks for the suggestions!

Thanks Hammy. I've had a couple batches turn out really cidery, probably because of the high fermenting temps, so I'm really cautious about temps now. :) I set my primary already down to 70F, I'll just drop it to 68F and call it good.

Last night i pitched a vial of WLP029 directly into my fermentor, wort was at 72F. The instructions on the vial say to make sure you are above 70F until the yeast starts to work. The recipe I'm using says to brew with WLP029 at 68F. My airlock started bubbling after about 10 hours, but i...

I've done 4 batches at the 2.5 gallon size, mainly because I was gifted with a Mr Beer set but never liked their stuff, so I got a 3 gallon better bottle. I had trouble with my first two batches tasting extremely yeasty, even months later. I realized I had halved all the ingredients in my...