Recent content by sliprose

I love S05 for most beers but i've found that peach flavor can be quite overpowering in light beers fermented on the cold side (low 60s). For some reason this yeast seems cleaner in the high 60s. Behaves the opposite of Notty which is really clean cold but gets unpleasant when it hits the 70s.

Make sure you have good batteries in your digital. I had a batch right before my digital thermometer's batteries died and I way missed my efficiency due to inaccurate readings. Put in new batteries and everything was good again. BTW: my floating is about 2 degrees off.

The 2" off the bottom seems like a good idea, especially when moving primary to secondary. I had a feeling there was a better way than what I have been doing, dropping the autosiphon all the way down. It seems the Belgium yeast strains don't have as solid of a yeast cake as some of the other...

I always use the hop bag over the racking cane when filtering out dry hops, but never when dry hops weren't present. Makes sense, I will try using for others to filter out yeast. Your comment of putting on a clothes pin makes me believe that you keep some distance from the bottom for your...

What techniques do people use with an autosiphon to transfer from the secondary to the bottling bucket to ensure the most clarity? Do you put the autosiphon all the way to the bottom, pump and let go? Do you put the autosiphon in the middle of the beer and then follow it down to the bottom as...

I've been using whole leaf hops from Freshops just thrown in the wort. After cooling, I use an autosiphon without any filter on the end to get as much wort into my ale pail as possible. I have to clean it out a few times as it gets clogged with the whole leaves. I tried putting a hopsack...

Full boils and patience seem to have gotten rid of my "extract twang." I noticed a twang in the first 4-6 weeks of my early partial wort boils, but after about 2 months of aging the twang seems minimized. The "twang" seems less since I went full boils, but it also may be my progression as a...

Is there an advantage in using a stainless steel veggie strainer over a nylon 5 gal paint strainer (other than it lasting longer)? Better aeration? If you use a strainer is that the only aeration?

bradsul- I've never had much luck with the whirlpooling. I read the wiki and did what I thought was spec, but my autosiphon clogged immediately. I then tried putting a hop bag over the end of the autosiphon, but that clogged again almost immediately. If I could get a whirlpool to look like...

Getting the wort from the kettle to the primary (leaving the trub behind) has been the most trouble I've had in my homebrewing. I've been mainly using leaf hops (about 3oz per 5gallon batch), and I've struggled with every technique I've tried: lost siphons, clogged autosiphons, unsuccessful...

Last night I bottled my first and second all-grain batches. Number 1 was an IPA and #2 a Belgium Amber (Fat Tyre kit from NB). I had missed my temperature on the first one and needed to add water, but other than that it went pretty smooth from brewing to bottling, except for one thing. With...

Thanks for pointing that out, BeerAg. You're right, buckets of liquid around toddlers is a real drowning hazard - they even put big warnings on the sides of the buckets because of this. Anyone with children around should be reminded of this repeatedly. I was within 3 feet of the pail when...

Two weeks ago, made my first all-grain batch (Pale Ale) in my newly made mash tun with ss braid and batch sparged. All things considered it went pretty well. I missed my temperature so I had to add some hot water during the mash that thinned it more than I'd have liked and my sparge water...

It seems that a lot of people have had success using a mixture of white vinegar and bleach in water as a no rinse sanitizer. Apparently, the addition of vinegar lowers the ph so that the bleach is a lot more effective as a sanitizer. I don't recall the proportions but I believe it was only...

Good point, DB. I had thought of a loose lid, too. I made sure that the lid was properly sealed during the fermenting, by pushing it down on the edges. It was a bit** to get off when I opened up - so it seemed to be on tight. Checked the airlock seating, too. Still no bubbles. Don't know...