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Heaven help me, the day has finally come. My brand-new 14.5 gal conical fermenter has arrived. Since I placed the order for this sublime piece of brewing machinery, I have been brain storming how I am going to cool this thing during fermentation--the bath tub is no longer an option! Please...

I understand that brewers should be restrained with their stirring of the mash to avoid hot-side aeration. Couldn't you just flush out your tun with C02 and then go to town with the mash paddle? I would love to build some kind of automatic agitator ( similar to the the one a laundry washing...

I put together my first cream ale--well, my first light SRM beer ever, and just racked that golden beauty off to a secondary. The FG indicates that this one is going to be a around 8-8.5 ABV , :drunk: so this is my biggest beer ever as well. Well, to the point, I am a bit concerned that...

What is the lifespan of a plastic fermenter, the ale pale to be specific? I have used the same bucket now for 10 brews. Lately, I have been leaving the beer in the primary for about a month (and skipping the secondary alltogether). With beer sitting in there for such a long time, it has left...

I have been thinking about brewing up a sour beer in the new batch or two. I will be probably be using 50% Wheat, 35% Pale 2-row, and %15 6-row, or something like that. I have not yet considered the hops or yeast yet. Have any of you brewed a sour beer? If so, what was your method, what was...

Never under any circumstances should you assume that the large o-ring washer that seals the lid is too small to slip off the lid. When I was kegging up some of Jamil's American Brown--damn, that stuff is going to be tasty, I had inserted the lid and was busy swapping the pin locks (ooops) when...

My recent brew schedule has allowed me to brew every two weeks--got some kegs to fill. This has afforded me the chance to pitch new wort on my previous batches yeast cake. On my last batch I pitched a 1.050 wort on a nice thick WLP001 yeast cake and that puppy took off in less that two hours...

Hello all, I recently posted on my brewblog (brewbaron.wordpress.com) some simple tips to avoid boil overs. In response to my post, someone has asked me for some tips to avoid boil overs when creating high-grav starters. I have never had this trouble so I pose this question to you all. If...

Has anyone investigated the relationship between how much the mash is stirred and the mash efficiency? I would have to assume that lots of stirring would improve enzimatic action and help maintain a temperature balance. This is assuming that you can stir it without losing a lot of heat from...

:mad: Crap. I am new to kegging and this total caught me off guard. I have had a brew sitting at room temp in a keg for about 2 weeks now while I am building my kegerator. When i hooked up the gas to the keg, beer shot up my gas line lightning fast and got into my regulator! #@#!. That...

I am curious. Do any of you use short fat fermenters. I am building a kegerator ( as mentioned in another recent post in this forum ) and and thinking about doing some lagering in the old freezer portion of the frige. I only have a couple of feet of clearence and am not sure how warm I can...

Now that my new fridgerator has arrived, I was able to get started constructing a kegerator! :ban: I love seeing this beauty come together. I, of course, would love to get some feedback from those of you that have put one together yourself. So far, I have build the level platform and have...

I just finished my first all-grain batch of beer yesterday but I think that I made a big mistake. I didn't vorlauf enough when catching my second runnings and I ended up letting in a fair amount of very fine grain particulate. Being a first-time all-grain brewer, I didn't realize that cloudy...

I recently order the Bayou Classic Banjo Cooker, the one that puts out 210,000 BTUs, and was very upset to find that the cook surface isn't level. It is bad enough that I wouldn't trust it to support a large pot--my 5.5 gal pot "wiggles." It supposedly will support a 120-L/30 gal pot! I...

I brewed up a batch of Belgium Wit Beer just over a week back; it was my first mini-mash and I had one hell of time keeping the temperature right during the mash. I mashed 1 pound of flaked oats and a 1/2 pound of white crushed wheat in cheesecloth bag. It seemed that every temperature...

I bottled a batch of American Amber Ale just the other day and ran into some trouble. When syphoning off my beer into the bottling bucket, I had transfered everything but about 24-36 oz when my syphon slipped and kicked up quite a cloud of sedement. No sedement made it into the bottling...

I just finished my second batch of brew and, for the second time, my inital gravity was less than the expected by about 0.06 or so. The previous batch was off just about the same amount. I am wondering if my hydrometer is a bit off. I am currently an extract brewer. I steeped the...

I recently finished brewing my second batch of beer. It is an American amber ale. Well, all went well excpet that I noticed too late that I flip flopped my bittering hops( Willamette) and finishing hops(Cascade). It is really too bad, I was looking forward to trying out the Cascade hops...

I am new at homebrewing and am interested in what the big advantages are to using an all-grain brewing process? Is the beer that much better than extract brewing? I am looking for ways to really get my per bottle cost down. In my research, I see that the cost of the input grains are less...

I am currently living in Kansas right now and am just getting started with this homebrewing hobby. Before I get too carried away, I would like to know, has anyone heard of any state laws that limit the amount that I can produce? I am certain that if I were to sell my beer, I would ave to...