Recent content by Pith

I'm not sure but I would guess that cider clones are far more difficult than beer clones so you might just have to experiment.

Alright, it's been sitting for 14 months now. Eucalypt honey, cooked to a deep burgundy, fermented with Trappist High Gravity, FG 1.000. Tasted it again just now and the rocket fuel flavour has subsided much more but not completely. It's very vinous and quite austere, actually. Nowhere near as...

Mould is not good. I hope you skimmed it off.

That sounds like a damn interesting contribution from whatever yeast have gotten to work! Is it a yeast character you enjoy? What I would do personally is rack the brew off the yeast onto a Saison strain (save some of it so you still have some pure Saison yeast left over), especially if you are...

Sounds like Kloeckera apiculata ate all the glucose from the maple syrup and then bummed out when they got to the maltose. Wait until it starts again; if there's other strains, they'll eat the dead K. apiculata and the other sugars and hopefully you'll get a nice krausen happening again. If it...

Markcurling... results?

A post I saw a couple of pages back about the use of heavily hopped wort intrigued me. Does hopping reduce the likelihood of growing mould, in addition to bacteria? Mould is the main thing that stops me from doing this more often. Also, does mould dislike acidity, and to what extent?

Interesting. If you wanted to get a good feel for the lambic-ness of it, I'd actually do a lambic wort (minus aged hops) with unmalted wheat instead of malted, as that's what the bacteria munches on. And I haven't known Brett to show itself that early. But yeah, sounds quite successful and...

The minimash sounds like quite a good idea, and cheaper than extract, which is what I used last time I tried this, a long time ago. Anyway, I've been planning to brew a Saison soon since it's Summer here in Oz, and the idea struck me that I could do two batches, one with a Wyeast Saison yeast...

What's a "minimash allgrain starter"? Did you just mash a handful of grain? Is it hopped?

Cool. Did you taste the product at all?

Those lemon shaped ones are Kloeckera Apiculata. They only digest glucose, I think, and they do a lot of the work in a cider fermentation because of this. Theoretically, the ratio of Saccharomyces and other yeasts should increase over the K. apiculata when the latter runs out of things to eat.

I tried and failed several times in winter to catch em. It MIGHT have been the rain.

Mulberry wine can be ever-so-fine - if you know how to make it well! ;)

Since there was such a small quantity of rice, it boiled over a couple of times very quickly. The walnut aroma was strong throughout the cooking but unfortunately is not very prominent in the cooked product. It still has some lovely unique cereal flavours that would still be interesting in a...