Recent content by Praesil

I'm over in Falls Church, but used to live in Ballston. That sounds like a great event, and I'd definitely like to attend if it happens. (And I have a couple of beers that should be ready on Columbus day.)

From what I've been reading, the pumpkin will either make my sparge stick, or give me an ungodly amount of trub, and does nothing for the flavor. It's all about the spices. I'd rather avoid the headache.

From what I read about the difficulties and the benefits of adding pumpkin... what if I just add orange food coloring instead of pumpkin? Or would that screw things up?

I'm planning to do this beer over the weekend. Grabbed a couple of all-grain things from earlier, plus the original post. Noticed that some wanted more lemon, so I upped that to three, How does this look: 8 lbs Pale Malt 0.25 lb CaraPils 3 lb Clover Honey 1 lb Cane sugar 1oz...

So I brewed this on Veteran's day, bottled on New Year's day, and still l have some left around. It was my first all grain batch and had somewhat of a low efficiency - around 65% ish, but that was my poor understanding at the time of the difference between fly and batch sparging. (Don't use...

Made this a few weeks ago - it spend 3 weeks in the primary and so far, 1 week in secondary. What's a good time length for secondary (3 weeks?) and how long from bottle to drink? (I'll assume 2+?)

I grabbed a 50 quart rubbermaid cooler on Craigslist for $10. The cooler in question: It's got a drain and plenty of capacity, however there's a lip on the inside, about halfway up (hopefully you can tell from the picture). I'd estimate that the bottom part can hold about 4-5 gallons...

Even though I added the nutrients during the boil, the fermentation was very active, and even after 8 days, is still producing a healthy stream of bubbles. I didn't think it was mold since the alcohol should have killed it, so I was assuming that it was yeast sedimenting out and depositing on...

About 8 days ago, I threw together this recipe for orange vanilla cinnamon methlegin. I checked on it this morning and there's a whitish spot on the orange peel. I'm hoping that this is yeast, and not mold. I'll be racking it tonight as the fermentation has slowed a bit, but I just wondered...