Recent content by tbrown4

Been a while since I've checked in. The Galaxy, Citra and Sorachic Sce IPA went real quick. Was very popular with my buddies. I'm now on my third variation of the IPA, with the 5 spread out hop additions with dry hopping. The second version used Nelson Sauvin, Australian Galaxy & Topaz and...

Wanted to check in here. I ended splitting this batch for secondary. 2.5 gallons sat on 2 oz. cacao and 2.5 gallons sat on three vanilla beans. Both sat in secondary for 9 or 10 days. About a week in to secondary I began tasting both every day or so. Prior to bottling I took a half gallon off...

I haven't done the cacao treatment yet.

So this one has been sitting at 1.020 for about two weeks. Im assuming its not gonna drop any more. I was expecting it to drop a little more. Tasted about right. Decent body. Not overly sweet. Thinking about moving to secondary for treatments. Any recommendations otherwise?

Ok. I will not increase the cacao nibs. Thanks for the input, all!

looneybomber....thank you! this is exactly what I was looking to do. Went to the LHBS this afternoon to get some random supplies for brewing this weekend and grabbed a few packages of EC-1118. Much appreciated!

Ive done a vanilla treatment for secondary before, split, scraped, vodka'd.

Thanks for the input! Another thought I had was to split the batch...which I seem to do a lot of as I learn this hobby. Take some of it and sub in vanilla bean instead of cacao nibs. Maybe do a small batch with both cacao nibs and vanilla bean. Thoughts on either of those ideas?

Got this kit today and will probably be brewing in the next 7-10 days. Here's the basic recipe: Size: 5.00*gal Original Gravity: 1.054 Terminal Gravity: 1.013 Color: 23.79 (30.0 - 40.0) Alcohol: 5.3% (4.0% - 6.0%) Bitterness: 35.6 (20.0 - 40.0) Ingredients: 0.25*lb Extra Dark...

Checking in, it's been some time. This stout ended up sitting in secondary for quite some time before bottling. Now it's been bottled about a month or so. Sadly, it doesn't seem to have carbonated at all. I'm thinking that it may have something to do with the high gravity and ABV, topped out...

I just use a very large stock pot to boil for a 1L starter, starting with 1.3L and ~108-110g DME. Keeping a squirt bottle handy and my hand on the burner control. Let it cool a bit after a 10 min boil then into a half gallon growler. Bung and air lock it. Fool proof. On my fourth generation on...

I've always steeped in the boil kettle. But I'm getting give this a try. Thanks for the suggestion!

Just trolling through this morning. Somewhat new to this hobby. Got seven batches done....5 original recipes....and I've had the question for a while. I was under the impression that dextrine carapils was a must for a lot of brews...but you are saying that its already in DME?

I enjoy the impressions that are left from the honey. unless I'm imagining things here. If I use Brett at all it will be very small portion of the batch that will sit for a long. maybe a gallon of it. I think this time around I'm just gonna do the recipe above.

definitely in a good way. It's not overwhelming. I like that flavor in this style beer. my wife actually suggested me doing a chocolate beer with this yeast to see if I could somehow pull out that banana flavor.