Recent content by Scratch

I guess the problem is if someone expects it to taste like the finished product (I'm sure the commercial brewer doesn't.)

Did you dump that first batch right out of the fermenter? Never judge a brew before it's been in the bottle for a while. Every one of my favorite batches tasted awful while I was bottling them, then tasted great after a few weeks of bottle conditioning.

What if the dead guy had just finished filling a trub- and hop-laden carboy with oxyclean before dying?

I keep all my batches in primary for 4 weeks, then bottle.

Edit: Dangit, ancient thread. For a recirculating chiller, the more your ice melts, the more heat you are removing from the wort. I use a small-ish submersible aquarium pump, copper tubing, and 8 pounds of ice to cool my 2.5 gallon batches. Not only do I let the hot return water hit...

If you say your gravity reading and someone reacts as if you're a noob, have some fun with it and act like they've been saying it wrong all along. Actually, there's a pretty decent chance they'd believe you.

I recommend you don't mention the hair when handing out the beer.

It's possible there was a leak, but I doubt it. The rubber cap was a pretty tight fit. While the fermentation was underway I figured that the reduction in temperature and the CO2 production just canceled each other out in the same volume (recalling that PV=nRT.) It's also possible that some...

Sorry, the title is sort of a trap. Surely some worried newbie will find this in his search for reassurance about the lack of bubbles in his airlock. I just opened the first bottle of a batch that I brewed 5 weeks ago. It was very nice, and perfectly carbed. Just what I wanted. Thing...

For future emergencies, Annapolis Homebrew is open noon-4:00 on Sundays. Maybe a 2-hour round trip or so, from Arlington? Great store. Edit: Also open Mondays. This store has unusually convenient hours for people who both brew and have a job.

Earlier today I tried the first bottle of a batch that I bottled a week ago (I usually plan to wait at least two weeks, but I popped one today because, you know...for science.) Anyway, it tasted great. When I tasted it just before bottling it tasted like the runoff when I spray the grass off...

See one of my earlier threads here. Good luck!

You should read the thread I just started before reading yours ("Success from my un-carbed beer.") I too used three carbing tabs, and I too had flat beer for many weeks (and months.) After 6 months it was perfect.

I'm posting this for any newbies who may find themselves in the same situation I did. Back in June I bottled a basic "lager" style beer (though it wasn't really a lager) made from an LBS ingredients kit. After three weeks I tried a bottle and it tasted OK, but was flat. I tried another bottle...

I don't think he has a hydrometer. Anyway, the hydrometer tells you how heavy the wort is compared to water. You just float it in the wort and read the mark where the wort touches it. By comparing the reading before fermentation (OG, or "original gravity") to the reading after fermentation...