Recent content by jtmartino

For Books, I'd check out anything written by Michael Jackson. For online resources, see below. This has a great explanation of different styles. Probably the most comprehensive and current, although not as much on the history of things...

There's an "invisible ceiling" in many breweries, as well as the winemaking industry. You will be limited by your education at some point or another. At the very minimum, you will need to study biology and chemistry. The ideal brewmaster candidate has a background in physical sciences and a...

I do have a hydrometer. As stated earlier, gravity after a week was 1.012. Expected FG for this recipe was somewhere around 1.015. I've scrubbed and soaked everything in oxiclean, scrubbed and soaked it in a strong bleach solution, rinsed excessively, and soaked again in StarSan. Hopefully...

Perhaps, but that doesn't explain why my buddy's batch of beer with the same recipe tasted normal after a week, and mine was sour. I'll know for sure on Tuesday, since I replicated my recipe and the second batch will be done in the primary by then.

People use it all the time in making cider to stop fermentation or kill of baddies. It was really the only thing I could do to kill any current infection, short of pasteurizing (which doesn't work well without proper equipment.) Not sure how long it takes to dissipate, but I'm in no hurry...

Right. I was told by my homebrew store owner that the beer would be safe for yeast or other bacteria about 48 hours after dropping the Campden tabs.

I noticed the sourness about 7 days after pitching the yeast, which is when I racked to the secondary. Not sure where you got the four days number. Also, a buddy brewed a similar recipe, and his beer was not sour at all after a week. For reference, I measured gravity, and it's around the...

I have the White Labs Brettanomyces Lambicus WLP653. What makes you think that it's not a sour? I'm a big fan of sour beers, and this one definitely has an acetic flavor.

Hello all, I have seen a couple threads on this, but no definitive answers, so I thought I'd throw it out there. About a week and a half ago I brewed a pumpkin ale using fresh pumpkin and a recipe similar to Thunderstruck. Fermentation was aggressive and prolonged (about three days...