Recent content by jvetter

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Does anyone have any empirical information on how much is too much? I ask because I have a wine barrel (59 gal) in its 4th year of solera with lambic style beer. We tasted this in June/July and it had a strong solvent flavor. We tried it again in Jan and the solvent was pretty much all gone...

I'm guessing either low ph or not enough lacto. For my last berliner I made a 2 vial lacto starter several weeks in advance to give it plenty of time to grow. I actually pitched the lacto starter first giving it a chance to take hold and it was in a full kerausan within 24 hrs (I did pitch a...

I made a Brett Saison using 3711 and WL Brux with both being pitched in the beginning at the same time. The finished beer only had mild funkiness, but after a few months of aging in 750s the funk is now at perfect levels.

I have always used White Labs, simply because they are the most available. I've had good success with all strains.

You have achieved what I have been wanting to do for a while now, spontaneously fermented beer. I would let it ferment and see what happens :) I plan to do this on purpose very soon...

With my lambics once primary is done I get rid of the airlock and replace it with a standard silicone stopper loosely placed so any gas can escape if it needs to. I use the holed ones with a custom made oak stick down the center. The pellicle will protect the beer from oxygen as well, so I don't...

This likes the pellicle on my lambics. I typically pitch sach, brett, lacto and pedio.

I suspect cross contamination. Suggest keeping your sour beers in a separate room, at least this is what I do and haven't had an issue yet.

In this case I had no dry hop. Only the first one had dry hops. Last three had none. Recipes are quite different. First two had pellets. Second two had leaf. My boil kettle now has a false bottom, so none of the hops from the last twp hoppy beers had any hops in the fermentor.

I could understand some of the hop aroma disappearing, especially from dry-hop, but I'm talking a complete hop bomb that masks everything, to a Belgian ale that has very little noticeable hops. Literally talking 5-7 days too.

I perceived it as a change in the hop character only. It first started to disappear, then at some point start to taste weird enough that I couldn't drink it. I had a few friends that were not bothered by it and even took the kegs. But the key was that those first two completely different beers...

My last brew was a Belgian IPA, very similar to Flying Dog Raging ***** or Stone Cali-belgique. It stayed the fermentor for 3 weeks, had a full day of carbonation and then was kegged. At the unveiling it was hoppy goodness. Full of hop flavor with balanced bitterness and decent aroma. Much of...

I'm looking for a good air tight storage solution for my grain. What do people use to store there grain and still make it convenient to move and dispense? A friend uses 5 gallon buckets, but these only hold around 20 lbs of 2-row. It would be nice to have something that at least hold 27.5...

So, after 72 hours there was still no activity but when I woke up this morning it was FINALLY noticeably moving. That's a good 84 hours after it started, probably a record for me. The only thing I did differently than usual was to stop the stir plate for 6-8 hours between the 60-72hr period...