Recent content by Trufflepig

Hmm... it's greek to me as well but I'll try and find some more info on it and try to make some sense. I'll definately give an update on Jan 2 with the outcome. The other option here would be to ditch my recipe and hops and start with a new tried/true recipe, some new hops and hit it again...

Actually - good point. The only thing that is the same with this batch and the Imperial that got stuck is the hops. I used the same hops from the same batch. I have used those hops in other beers, but not to this extent - it's 1 oz or possibly .5 oz. You thinking that the hops may have...

Mine smells great (of course it could be that I just really like all stages of beer!) but the initial taste before the ferment was nicely hoppy, sweet and smooth. I'll take a taste when I pull the reading in a few days and see. Right now it's dead stopped whereas this morning it was still...

I usually aerate using a drill & paddle --- this time I did 30 seconds of oxygen through a 5 micron stone, pitched, and did a short shake up after the pitch. My imperial would not budge off of 1.040. This latest one I'm going to give a few more days and then take a reading.

It stopped active fermentation in 2 days... I gave it 7 days, took a gravity reading and it was 1.040 (OG was 1.092). I tried swirling and adding some yeast but nada. I pulled it into a secondary and repitched thinking that it's just stuck for another 5 days - no activity at all during those 5...

Apparently IPA's hate me. This is now the second IPA in a row that doesn't seem to be going well. My previous one turned into a dicetyl nightmare at an OG of 1.092 (it was an imperial) and was undrinkable and unsavable and had to be dumped. That pissed me off so much I chose to modify the...

I'm going to give you Brewmasters a shot for my next brew. I should be ordering sometime after the first of the year. Always glad to support good places that do a good job!

To me, the base beer kinda does matter. For example, blueberry+wheat ale base works, blueberry works with pretty much any wheat, whit or lighter based beer as the blueberry can be complimented by the base beer and not overpower it or vice versa. Blackberry however (to me), is usually a bit...

I'm just putting together some of the labels that I've created for my brews - these are bascially made in Corel (I never got good at Photoshop or Illustrator) but I basically copied the template off the net, made some modifications and now can put together a label using some humorous elements...

I had some bottles not carb up much on my first few brews or they were inconsistent. The ones that come out decent are the one's where I still suck up some of the little beasties off the bottom of the secondary and get them into the bottling bucket. If I don't get much off the bottom or...

Thought I'd follow up with this post and say that unfortunately the Imperial IPA died. :( The stuck fermentation never passed 1.040 - tried to restart it with some swirling, yeast energizer, warming it up... but alas ... the dicetyl was simply too great to save it. Literally, it was like...

Hefeweizen IPA ESB

I want to jump in here and I know the American Persimmons are done for the season, but I just bottled an experiment and it came out insanely good, so I had to share. I decided to do a Persimmon Belgian high gravity for the holidays as a winter warmer. I've got 2 nice sized American persimmon...

Just brewed a 1.096 imperial IPA this past weekend. All went well - nailed the OG, and double pitched the yeast. WL California and Safale 04 (which according to my research is supposed to be the same yeast strain). The Safale I created a 2000 ml starter 3 days before, and the WL I used right...