Recent content by messersc

This is helpful, Dave. It sounds like we're doing similar things, although I've cut off some secondary shoots very high up, which seems like it was probably a mistake ... but I'll know for next year. Thanks!

Hi all, My understanding of how to prune hops after the first year or two is that you should allow 4 bines or so per plant to grow. I've been following that advice and am now on year 4 with strong, healthy plants. Should I be trimming the offshoots from the main bines, though? I've been...

Thanks, Gabe and Georges - I guess I should have been a little more detailed in my first post. I did add yeast at bottling, but it was Safale US-05. From what Georges is saying, it sounds like I should have been more discerning about which particular yeast I put in there. And yes, the bottles...

About seven weeks ago I bottled a kriek that had been sitting for some 15-16 months. It's my first sour beer ever. It fermented down pretty low (1.006 from 1.061 OG). It tastes very nice... the only problem is that it's still not carbonated at all. I primed with DME at an amount that was...

Thanks for the help, all; it turned out to be the right advice. The beer is great. Doesn't come across as overly-dry, either. Carbonation was fine, too.

Thanks for the feedback. This is the fourth time I've used the same colony of yeast, and looking back at my results the attenuation has risen a little each time. Maybe I'm not top-cropping at quite the right time. Anyway, I'm guessing from what you guys are saying that things are fine.

Hi, I'm bottling a beer using Fermentis Safale US-05 right now that attenuated to 83.5%. The beer tastes as it should right now (it's a pumpkin ale that's very lightly spiced, not nearly so much so that spices would mask clearly foul flavors). I know that I have to wait and see, but since I'm...

I hope it's OK to wake up an old thread. Could skimming affect the beer's head retention? I'm basing this on very primitive logic, I'll admit: the boil's foam sort of looks like beer head, and so, I'm imagining, taking away one could diminish the other.

S-04 wouldn't underattenuate at 14C? I don't know anything about the biology or pragmatics of brewing ales at that sort of temperature, so please inform me.

Thanks for the help; I was the one who "tossed out" the number of 1.012, which really was pulled out of nowhere. It appears then, that pumpkin should be completed excluded from estimates. If anyone has any further suggestions on the ideal grain/water ratio, it'd be appreciated. - Mat

I don't think you can. Your numbers are so undershot that something must have gone wrong with your grains too, as far as mashing efficiency goes. Unfortunately I am not of any more help, because I just did my pumpkin brew and got a similar result (1.079 projected; 1.049 realized). The difference...

I'm getting from you guys that my OG estimations shouldn't really be affected by the pumpkin. That's in line with my experience the one time I made a pumpkin ale (with fresh pumpkin). But what about mash water? If the pumpkin is in the mash, should it be treated just like malted barley as far...

Hi, I live in Romania. Can anyone point me in the right direction for a 50L Sankey-style keg? Since this site is mostly visited by Americans - even if you don't have a specific lead for me, any suggestions would be appreciated, however vague. Thanks.

I hope there's nothing impolite about waking up an old thread... but I am still looking for a definite answer to the question of whether to freeze, and don't have the answer myself. I've become interested since starting to think about growing my own hops, which, it seems to me, would end up...

So cool!! How perceptible is the difference between table salt and sea salt in beer? I've never brewed with sea salt. Also, can you give any pointers about amounts to use? Do you need to take into account any sea salt that could be on the shells?