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so, i tasted my apfelwein that i pitched on 1/4 today. It was good, but it didn't taste very "Apfel-y" at all. In fact, it tasted very much like a standard white wine. A sauvingon blanc, i'd say. I've never made my own wine, so i'm guessing the flavor all comes from the montrachet wine...

what's the purpose of a starter? Is it to introduce actively fermenting yeast into your wort so there is no lag time, or is it simply too add a large volume of yeast so that they don't have to do as much reproduction? I made a 1/2 gallon starter but my brew day got postponed, so after...

Does anyone know how to express the ratio of gravity to gallons of water as an equation, so they can be manipulated? For example, if my efficiency is low, I'd rather boil down more to hit my target gravity than hit my target volume. Since specific gravity already is a ratio, it's throwing me...

How do you tell at what rate your burner uses propane? And what's the best way to tell how much is left in a tank? (measuring pressure or weight, i'd presume...)

Hi- I apologize. I'm sure this has been asked a million times, but I want to make sure I have it right. I'm going to make a Scottish 60/- Untitled (the second one - with the specialty grains) and I'm not 100% on my mash/sparge calculations. This is a five gallon batch. So, I would start with...

Hey do you guys know where I can get a ~32qt stockpot? I just want to run out & pick one up & not deal with shipping, etc. Seems like most retailers only carry up to about 20qt. I live in Northern NJ, where we have about 3 of every chain retailer on every highway.

I made my first starter last night. According to the directions on the wyeast propogator pack, boiled 2cups LME in ~2L water. Cooled. Pitched. I took the pack out of the fridge & smacked it about 3 hrs before i pitched. I believe it was starting to swell, but it wasn't completely ballooned...

Hi- Getting ready to use a copper immersion chiller for the first time on saturday. Anything I have to do to clean it before I use it? It doesn't have any of that green corrosion that copper sometimes gets, but it's slightly dull. I soaked it in oxiclean and it came out looking the same. It...

hi- I was planning on brewing on friday, so I was going to prepare a starter tomorrow night. However, there's now a chance I might not be able to brew on friday, so I might have to move it to sunday. With football staring, and the other stuff i had planned for sun, I might not actually get to...

Getting ready to do my first AG next week and I need to pick up a digital thermometer for the mash and a scale for the grain. Can anyone recommend a particular brand or store (ie walmart carries this, or target carries that...) Don't really know where to get either. Also - is it possible to...

So, this is my third batch. Two weeks in the bottle. I checked on it today and there's these little beige colored dots all over a lot of the bottles. Never seen this before. I popped a bottle last week just to check on it, slightly flat, but otherwise tasted fine. Is this yeast, or is my...

Hi- With a few extract brews under my belt, I'm going to take the leap into all-grain, and I was considering making an Altbier for my first attempt. The next time I'll have a chance to brew will be the first weekend in november. I want to brew something that is good for the winter, and have it...

Hi- I'm going to be doing my first AG batch this fall and I need to build a MLT. However, I can't decide what equipment to use. My #1 requirement is: EASY TO CLEAN. So that makes me lean towards a false bottom instead of a manifold. But, I can only find 5gal round coolers in all the local...

Hi- I bought one of those jet bottle/carboy washer things and it turns out they are made to connect to a laundry sink or garden hose. Does anyone know of a particular adapter I can use for my kitchen sink? I went to Lowes, but couldn't find anything. Not sure if I just didn't know what to...

For some reason i decided to brew a bavarian wheat beer on the first day of a heat wave. 8oz Carapils steeped 6lb Wheat LME (bottle says it's 65% wheat & 35% barley) Wyeast Bavarian Wheat yeast: http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=59 when i grabbed my fermenter from the...

I sanitized my bottles with bleach on tuesday night, but something came up and I won't be able to bottle on friday. The bottles are sitting dried with no tops in my basement. Should I re-sanitize?

So once I racked my first brew to secondary - i just can't get the beer smell out of my primary - an ale pail plastic bucket. I cleaned twice each with bleach and OxiClean. Is this just par for the course, or am i going to impart off flavors, or worse, attract infections going forward?

Hi- For my first batch, i brewed a brown ale: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=3365 which uses munton's dry yeast. The instructions say that the target SG is 1.044-1.048, and the target FG is 1.010-1.012. My SG came in a bit high at 1.051. I took gravity...

I know, I know - RDWHAHB, right? But I just want to ask. I brewed a brown ale for my first batch - http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=3365 i pitched the yeast at about 10pm on thursday night. It was bubbling about 1 bubble per second on friday morning when I...

OK, Finished my first brew last night. I made a brown ale: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=3365 I pitched the yeast about 10pm last night and it was bubbling at about 1 bubble/sec when i checked it this morning. Overall, i think it went pretty well, but i have...