Recent content by Lep

Hah. I may have soured my batch afterwards, and I also dropped a carboy with about a gallon of said batch in it. Calamity brew day.

I'm going to have to look into it...yeah.

No gusher. it pours nicely. and I did clean with hot water and sanitise with sodium metabisulfite, but I guess something went wrong... edit: they've been bottled for two weeks.

I have opened two bottles of a coopers LME dark ale kit and they are sour. Is this a flavour that is likely to lessen over time? or get worse? The flavour is......unpleasant and is especially apparent in the aftertaste. I never really noticed anything growing during fermentation, no film etc.

I did a cream ale from them. It was ok. It took a really long time to develop, it was only my last few bottles, about four months after I fermented it, that it came around to something I was happy with with. I didn't tweak the recipe at all.

Up front you'll save nothing. And every time you think you're turning the page on that, you'll go further down the rabbit hole and need more equipment. I was given a bunch from my brother and I've still found myself spending money on more stuff every time I visit the LHBS. Eventually, sure...

This is my first time using maple. I read as much as I could and it seemed that folks who added it to the boil were only left with a really woody flavour after fermentation, and generally speaking folks said that carbing with it will give you more maple and less wood. I used one cup to prime...

SUCCESS! Just cracked a bottle from my first attempt at this method. It's been two weeks since I bottled. I apparently have overshot the amount of maple syrup because my cap shot off (I thought it was about 75% fermentable and added one cup to four gallons) but none of the bottles have...

It's built up krausen and is bubbling (not airlocked), I haven't agitated it or moved it at all. I guess it was probably just on the cool end of things probably and woke back up. I wasn't going to be bottling for a little while yet and not wanting to disturb the beer, I haven't taken a hydro...

I've got a batch that's already been in primary for eleven days, it was going before, not fast, but going and I saw yeast globs at the top of the brew. I've just gone and checked it and there was a lot of activity, but the yeast still looks normal. I recognise this is probably a "OMG is my beer...

I got 5.5 gallons boiling nicely without problems. It took longer to get there, but it did get there.

I've left roughly the same amount of headspace and it's been fine. Also, all my large bottles have been better than my smaller bottles, maybe they've conditioned better? I don't know.

I'll try oxyclean then. I have most of the labels off my grolsch bottles, but quite a glue residue left. It's not really that big a deal, but it's annoying to have it on there.

I've just started doing partial mashes w/ quite a bit of grain. Not counting the dme I add to boost the abv, my cost per batch has been closer to forty. Still pretty reasonable (and cheaper than a festa brew kit for fifty, although my one festa brew turned out REALLY well), but not quite the...

I don't have a wand or a spigot on my bottling bucket. I do plan to get that sorted out eventually, but for the time being I bottle by pinching off my siphon. By myself it would be either impossible or very slow going, but with a friend we can get into a pretty smooth rhythm and keep the mess...