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I have one week to get an IPA dry hopped and carbed in a keg and ready for a beer festival. I've read that dry hopping is best done at room temp, so I'm planning on dry hopping and carbing at room temp, then a day or two before the festival transfering to the keezer and adjusting the pressure...

I've got a tiny kitchen and no yard. This is a problem because I've always been an all-grain brewer. Now I'm limited to all-grain brewing whenever I can use my friend's set up. So, in order to allow myself to brew more often, I'm thinking about splitting my time between extract and all-grain...

I've got a tiny kitchen and no yard. This is a problem because I've always been an all-grain brewer. Now I'm limited to all-grain brewing whenever I can use my friend's set up. So, in order to allow myself to brew more often, I'm thinking about splitting my time between extract and all-grain...

The Saison recipe I'm using (Raison d'Saison from Brewing Classic Styles) calls for 1 lb of cane sugar, but doesn't say when. Part of me says add at the beginning of the 90 min boil (or at least before the 60 min hop addition) so that my boil is at the desired full-boil gravity. But the other...

I have recently gained the ability to lager my beers, and have plenty of space. So I was planning on cold condition some of my ales as well, just because I can. So the question is this: are there any ale styles that cannot be cold condition with compromising the style of the beer...

I've heard a lot of people here and elsewhere saying that secondary is an unnecessary step. I heard that it's based on techniques used 30 years ago, when the variety and quality of available yeast were both pretty low. At that time yeast autolysis was a problem, but with today's dramatic...

I'm looking to convert an old dorm fridge into a fermentation chamber for one gallon lager batches, and was wondering if there is one temperature controller that most people would recommend. I'm looking to use it only for primary lager fermentation, and as it seldom gets that cold to begin with...

Just bottled about two cases of cyser (nothing fancy--just apple juice, honey, and yeast). It tastes pretty decent, but not as good as I'd hoped and it probably wouldn't be my first choice of beverage considering the amount of other homebrews I still have sitting around. I'm thinking maybe...

I'm trying my hand at a coffee porter. I've got a decent porter recipe I think, but I can decide how best to add the coffee in. I've heard all kinds of different ways, from adding dry coffee to the boil to steeping it overnight in room temp water and adding to secondary, to brewing a pot of...

I've heard a lot of mixed opinions on decoction mashing. Some have told me that it's nice but the benefit is very small compared to the work. Others have said that decoction mashing is the only way to get the great malt flavors of German lagers, and that anything else is just not to style...

I brewed a pilsner exactly three weeks ago. Fermented for one week at just below 55F then racked to secondary at about 38F. Gravity was 1.011. After two weeks of lagering I've still got bubbles coming up from the bottom! I haven't checked the gravity yet but since it was 1.011 two weeks ago...

I'm brewing my first lager this week, and wanted to get a jump on a bottling question I had. Does it matter at what temperature the beer is stored once bottled? I'm not sure that I have space in my fridge for it all, so storing at room temp would be preferable if possible.

Hey everyone! I've been brewing ales for a while now. I finally got my hands on a dorm fridge that I can lager in, but there's an issue: it only fits 5 gallon buckets, not the 6.5 gallon ones. Now, this would be my first venture into lagering, so I'm not totally familiar with the...

I currently have 5 gallons of cider made from unfiltered in secondary. I currently have cinnamon, nutmeg, and oak soaking in the fermenter. My issue is that I'm only just realizing that I would have liked to add pectic enzyme to clear up all that nasty pectin making my cider cloudy. Will...

I'm looking to make 5 gallons of hard cider with cinnamon, nutmeg, and white oak (attempting to clone Woodchuck Fall cider). I've made beer and wine before, but this will be my first venture into cider, so I'm hoping that someone could give me a ballpark estimate of weight of spices per 5...

The attached picture is a 5gal carboy of traditional mead. I've racked twice in the last couple months, and lost a bit of product. Is this too much headspace? Should I be worried about oxidation? I'd top it up, but I have nothing to top it up with. And I don't want to add that much water...

I've heard from everywhere that you should bottle your mead when it is "clear". What exactly does that mean? It seems to be a bit of a subjective measurement. Should it be clear in a glass? Clear through the carboy? Cause my orange blossom mead is a dark orange color and I can't imagine...

I made a traditional mead about two months ago. After about one month I racked it to a glass carboy. About two weeks ago power outages from Hurricane Isaac prompted me to move the mead from my air-conditionless house to a relatives house about a block away. I just moved it back to my house a...

I live in New Orleans and I just brewed 10 gallons of brown ale on Sunday. I used a Wyeast London III in one fermenter and a dry American ale in the other (don't remember the manufacturer offhand). The Wyeast finished most of the vigorous fermentation by this morning (Tuesday) but I was still...

I'm looking to buy either Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, or Merlot grapes for wine. Problem is I live in southeast Louisiana. Not exactly wine country. I'm not opposed to having grapes shipped here, but I'd much prefer to drive to a vineyard and get the grapes myself. Preferably I'd like to...