Recent content by pentirei

Bump! I'm curious about this too, as I've never brewed a cider before but would love to know how it would fare in Brandon_O's Graff recipe. Anyone have any thoughts?

One last update. The beer is now fully carbed and just as delicious as I hoped. You get a fresh basil aroma the second you open the bottle, which gives way to the sweeter berry scent almost immediately. This beer tastes as fresh as a springtime garden! Because I used US-05, the beer is actually...

In my batch, there is a pretty noticeable hop presence in terms of bitterness. Saaz (which I admittedly have never used personally) appears to have a rather low alpha acid percentage (3-4.5%) compared to the Cascade (6.8%) that I used as my bittering hops. That alone would change the structure...

I bottled this today. Ladies and gentlemen...brew this beer. I saved a sample and clumsily force carbed it using a SodaStream thingamajig. I knew it would make a mess but after tasting the flat sample I HAD to know what at least a rough draft of the final product would be like. And it's...

Guys, thanks so much for the suggestions. I just racked into the secondary last night. As wolfstar and EyePeeA suggested, I ended up doing a basil chiffonade that, incidentally, I didn't end up soaking in vodka at all. I just threw it in the nylon bag with my frozen strawberries. At EyePeeA's...

I noticed some of the products listed on the Scott Laboratories link posted earlier are listed as "double encapsulated." I imagine if that if yeast budding off the beads was at all concern, one could always take the beads, coat them in the alginate solution again, and quickly throw them back...

Quick update: Brewed this today, with a few tweaks. OG was 1.052, right on target. Only had a half pound of DME so I ended up throwing in a half pound of honey to compensate as the wort was chilling. I also used Citra instead of Belma as it was easier to get a hold of. The wort is too bitter...

This actually did happen to me -- no joke -- the Easter after my father remarried. Not as extreme, but the baskets were filled with fruit instead of candy, though there was one chocolate bunny. Also, in every basket was an artichoke. I was 15 at the time so I went with it, but Easter sure didn't...

Hops, for a start. What kind/how much are you using? I've also read that Carapils/Cara-Pils/dextrine-style malts, up to 5%, help with head retention.

Thanks for the feedback! I was a little concerned about cooked basil, too, but I was worried that with the extra fermentables from the strawberries already present in the secondary, "dry basiling" would be another risk for contamination. Do you think I have anything to worry about there? When...

As of right now I've only brewed one batch of beer, and my second is coming up, but as spring and summer are just around the corner, I want to have something refreshing ready to brew once I get my upcoming batch racked into my secondary. Conversations with friends led me to the idea of making a...

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm actually the most famous person from my school. I'm all over the Disney Cruise Line website, anyhow, which is a very minor kind of fame, but the only kind of fame I've witnessed or at least bothered to notice from my school. ;-)

Do you guys get 'em? I've only just started brewing (I've made one brew so far...an imperial IPA I called Wünderbier...it's already almost gone) and I guess the stress of waiting for Midwest Supplies' order status to change from "Processing" to shipped got to me. So I dreamt I was brewing what...

Just brewed my first batch, a double IPA that's bottle conditioning at the moment. I have high hopes. It's an extract, but I'm afraid due to a simple lack of space (I live in Manhattan) that extracts are all I'm going to be able to do for awhile. If my career didn't depend on me living in the...