Recent content by SewerRanger

The reason I separated the hops is because the longer you boil hops the more bitters you get but the less flavors. Splitting the hips will give you more flavor and more bitters (though I'm bit using the hips for much of each in this recipe). The yeast, and more importantly the temperature, I...

That high fermentation temp is what gives you a lot of the banana flavors. Try and keep it around 73F for the entire ferment. If that doesn't work, add more to the fermenter; that's where you get the flavor from. It sounds like the banana nose is dead on for you already do I don't think you...

It had a really nice banana flavor to it when I made it last. Not overly done, but you could taste them. Putting them in the secondary doesn't add much flavor, but intensifies the smell and bumps the ABV a bit.

Let me know how it turns out for you John. This was the first beer recipe I ever came up with all on my own (wasn't a clone/change to someone else recipe). It warms the cockles of my heart to see someone else wanting to brew it.

Any luck getting the ABV results? My brother recently suffered a TBI (he's fine now; well as fine as you can be when your brain moves 7mm to the right) and he can't have any alchohol anymore. I'm hoping to brew him some NA beers but I need to be sure there is little to no alchohol left (doctor...

Has anyone else ordered custom bottle caps? I'm making a bunch of beer for a friend’s birthday party this year and thought it would be cool to us a custom label and cap on the bottles. I found a site called Crafty Caps but I'm hesitant to use them because I can't find any info on them...

Yes, but only because I spelt Dextrin as Dextrose. In real life Dextrose (you probably know it as glucose) and Dextrin are different.

You got that correct. Hope you enjoy it.

Doesn't seem to have. I don't get a whole heaping load of head, but I do get a little bit. For some reason that just sounds wrong.

I'm using 100% baking chocolate like the recipe says. 100% cocoa baking chocolate is just that, 100% cocoa in bar form. Haven't you ever baked anything before? You can substitute 3 tblsps of cocoa + 1 tblsp of oil for 1 oz of chocolate. You need to add the oil when baking to substitute the...

22 oz in chocolate bars. 3 tbsps of cocoa is about 1 oz of chocolate bar. Remember you're working with 5 gallons of liquid.

I got 22oz by scaling the amount of chocolate I normally make my chocolate milk with to a 5 gallon batch. Most of it stays in the wort pot, but a little bit does make it all the way to the secondary but I've yet to see any in the bottle. I wouldn't change anything at this point. I think it's...

Sounds tasty, let me know how it works out.

I put more bananas in it for some extra flavor.

Nope, sits in a dark corner in my kitchen. Same place all the other brews sit. When I transfered it from primary to secondary it had a nice golden hue in the rubber tubing and was a bit dark in the actual carboy but that's what it usually does. Now it's really dark though. Kind of a bit of...