Recent content by rustygates

Yea, I do the same but I find it hard to get at where the tubing meets the end of the airlock. I always move it around and get all the gunk out of there but it's what I can't see that I am worried about.

Update. Just cracked one open and it's not great... there is a ton of green apple (Acetaldehyde) and a slight buttery aroma (diacetyl) on the nose and it becomes more apparent in the flavor as it warms up. I would think this is due to infection as my pitch rate was more than sufficient and...

Bottled yesterday and tasted a sample as I always do before bottling. Tasted fine, no funkiness or identifiable off flavors. I'll update in a couple weeks. Cheers!

Thanks for the input guys. I suppose I'll bottle it and pawn it off on the friends and relatives with a weak pallet ;)

It was an all grain brew and yes, I used sugar. Mashed at 149F. I guess the thought of the gravity matching that of distilled water has me concerned. Is it normal to have that low of a gravity?? I was expecting 1.005 at the lowest. From what I have read, a gusher infection typically comes...

I recently brewed a cream ale with an OG of 1.055 and fermented with wlp001 California ale that I built up in two starters. This is only the 6th batch I have brewed but the fermentation went a little longer than usual. I saw airlock activity within the first few hours and within 24hrs there...

This is disappointing. I will be taking my business elsewhere.

Thanks for the response. I actually ordered one a couple days ago. I didn't know about the accuracy issue post fermentation though. Good to know! Cheers!

Thanks guys! I think we narrowed it down to poor crush mixed with reading a hot sample. I really wish I had fermented the first batch now. Using the Brewers friend calculators, I estimated my OG to be around 1.044 which would have been a nice session ale. The bright side is that my "retry"...

The hydrometer reading was taken when the wort was still around 140-150F I imagine as I had just started heating to boil. It was reading 1.020, (maybe a little lower) on the first mash. Could it have had this big of drop due to temp? *edit I should mention I was shooting for 1.055 OG

Thanks for the replies! The first mash as mentioned above definitely could have been a grain crush issue. It was my first time using the mill at LHBS but the shop owner crushed the grain for the second mash and it looked better (grains fully cracked). Could I be shocking/denaturing...

So I did my first all grain batch yesterday with my brand new false bottom 10 gal. Igloo. I have been doing tons of research leading up to this and have read Palmers HTB (as well as referred back to it many times) so I thought my process was solid until my first mash calculated just under 15ppg...

Thanks, really appreciate all your help.

Can diacetyl be produced during bottle conditioning since there is some yeast activity and growth in the process?