Recent content by welker85

I went ahead and just bottled it yesterday.. I'm still kind of weary about the somewhat sour smell / taste, but am hoping it will disappear after a few weeks in the bottles. I was so very careful with sanitizing everything, almost to the point of OCD -- is there anything else that could...

What about the corn sugar I have dissolved in water that's been sitting in the fridge.. it'll have been there about two weeks before I bottle, is that okay?

That's correct, sorry. The corn SUGAR (:)) hasn't been added to the beer yet -- it's sitting in my fridge while I let the beer try to ferment a bit more.

I think the yeast is healthy enough -- like I said, I still taste some sour / sweetness, and I'm thinking it might be from sugars that haven't been fermented yet.

It was dry yeast -- Windsor Ale yeast.

Yeah, this is my first time ever using a secondary -- I was just following the recipe provided by my local homebrew store, which actually just seems to be almost the exact same as the official white house recipe. Do you think the sourness I'm tasting now will go away after a couple of weeks in...

Using a hydrometer placed inside of a thief.

Hello all, Three weeks ago I racked my White House Honey Ale into my secondary 5g carboy. The recipe I'm using says to ferment the beer for 14 days in the secondary, and you should get a FG of 1.015. My SG was 1.063, which was exactly what the recipe had written down. Prior to racking it to...

I just talked to my local home brewer store, and was told that leaving beer in your primary fermenter after the gravity has stopped changing will actually PRODUCE off flavors instead of eliminating them.. the manual that came with my kit also recommended 5-7 days. Seems like everybody's...

Now I understand why it should be in the bottle for 3 weeks to properly carbonate, but why does it necessarily have to be 3 weeks in the fermenter, if I can just cold crash it when the gravity stops changing?

I thought the priming sugar would be the main means of creating carbonation during conditioning, and not from leftover yeast? Also, if I were to cold crash it, should I rack it into my bottling bucket first or no?

Wow, thanks everyone for all the advice and words of wisdom! Really friendly forum you guys got going here. Although a little overwhelming, I really appreciate it. So I understand that what I'm doing is not optimal, as it may produce off flavors - but you guys are saying that I won't ruin the...

I talked to a guy at my local home brewer store, and he was highly against using a bottling bucket as a fermenter (the kit I purchased came with a bottling bucket that was advertised as a fermenter and a carboy).. you've had decent results with yours?

Well, the recipe doesn't call for a secondary, and after many hours of poking around the forums today it seems that secondaries aren't really recommended unless you're doing something special like dry hopping, using fruit, or using oak chips or something like that.. The general consensus...

So I shouldn't cold crash my primary before siphoning it into my bottling bucket and bottling? Also, is there any advantage to letting the beer stay in the primary even after fermentation has stopped and you're getting the same gravity readings?