Recent content by MTMuggs

I'm proud to be in such good company; that was my first thought. :P

I think it would be fun to make a brown ale with perhaps 1.5 oz in a 5 gallon batch to give you a wide, but drinkable range of 12-50 IBU depending on the AA content, then take some wort and make a flavoring addition and/or dry hop to see what kind of aroma qualities they have.

Yep, the past two brews I've had in a tub of water, no shirt, and the water was around 66-68 without any ice. I got to thinking, whatever the dry ale yeast is that Mr. Beer gives you, 2-4 grams of that at 70 degrees room temp gave me no problems. Maybe I was just leading a charmed life. :D

This is my first extract brew that I put together myself, after doing some Mr.Beer recipes. The Mr.Beer brews, 3 of them, never had any off-flavors. I'm getting some sort of off flavor that seems to best match phenolic, sort of a plasticky, medicinal flavor. Right out of the bottle, it didn't...

In addition to what others have said, have you tried a different serving temperature, especially if it is cold out of the fridge? I've found that can indeed make a big difference.

Perhaps you agitated the yeast into suspension and they decided to do their job. One suggestion I've seen before is to gently rock the fermentation vessel if you're stuck. Or maybe a few curses made them feel guilty at their laziness. :D

Since it seemed a little unclear, they're not saying to not carb the beer (ick), just that the gravity is way out of whack with the priming sugar in that recipe calculator. Priming sugar just doesn't make that much of a contribution to gravity or abv.

I personally didn't care for having to get the sticky LME out of cans (bad me!), I've never used the bulk jugs. To get it out of measuring utensils, do you just swirl the cup around in the pan on the stove, since the cup is sanitized? The only thing I didn't care for with DME is how it tends...

Thanks all for the responses! It's been a long week, with the septic and phone failing on the same day. :( Was good drinking some cold homebrew while I worked outside on that mess... I really like the idea of using collected rain/snow water for a brew, I'd imagine in the rural northeast...

Since reading Palmer about 4 years ago, I'd dreamed about brewing on my own but kind of forgot about it, and didn't drink at all for over a year. Glad to say, that's a-changing! My girlfriend bought me a Mr. Beer a couple months ago, which I have to say was a great introduction to the basics...

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