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I’ve done 3-4 batches using Viking malts so far, and I am pretty unimpressed. Every batch has turned out MUCH darker than anticipated; this is with their Pilsen, Pale Ale, and Rye malts. Anyone have similar experiences? The low prices are really tempting, but I’m a little weirded out by how far...

I have a grapefruit zest IPA fermenting in a pressure vessel in the kitchen (sacch trois, so I want a nice warm ferment). Every now and then the spunding valve lets out a long blast of amazing grapefruit and hop scented air.

I just kegged a SMaSH brewer with all Golden Promise and Mandarina Bavaria, fermented with sacch trois. I did this in a juicy NEAPA style: no boil hops, but 8 oz in the whirlpool and 6 oz as a biotransformation dry hop addition. It’s pretty good — finished dry, with a nice enough flavor — but...

I got a 15 gallon SS Brewtech kettle recently, and it came with the “trub dam” on the pickup tube. The three times I’ve brewed with it in place, it’s become completely clogged almost immediately, even in batches with minimal hops (and where I kept all the the hops in bags). I BIAB, and there is...

So today I brewed a hazy IPA with several lbs of sushi rice in the grist, fermented on tomatillos, matcha (powdered green tea), and lime zest, using a German ale yeast. Yeah, I dunno. It just seemed like a really interesting combination. Hops were a mix of Calypso, Azzaca, and Eukanot, with an...

For the last five or six years, I think, I’ve grudgingly made a wet hop beer every fall, and they have ranged from acceptable to immediate dumpers. The first couple of years I’m pretty sure I used hops that weren’t fully mature, and got exactly zero hop aroma/flavor, even with pounds of fresh...

I’m not generally a GF brewer, but I thought it would be interesting to try an all sweet potato mash. I diced six lbs of potatoes and boiled with a gallon of water for half an hour, then roughly mashed them into a soup with a potato masher. I let it cool to 152, then added amylase and kept it...

So, I’ve had a big fruit barleywine in secondary for 8 months. It was fermented with WLP-099, since it was around 1.12 OG. Fruit (10 lbs of blackberries) was added long ago in primary, so it’s been a long time since any fermentables were added. I bottled two days ago, Monday night. Before...

So, last year my four year old hops pulled down the structure I had set up (which was 2" electrical conduit screwed to the sides of my shed, with a wire rope across the top). This year I'm planning a new trellis, which will just be two freestanding 4x6" poles sunk 4' deep, with a wire rope...

For years I routinely used crystal malt in pretty much everything I brewed, even pale ales and IPAs. I don't like a bone-dry beer, so I figured crystal would keep things a bit sweeter. But the last several APA/IPA batches I've just gone 100% base malt, and they have been phenomenal. I mash...

I was given a 10 gallon bourbon barrel for Valentine's Day (now that's romance!), and I was going to brew up a nice, 1.090 or so imperial stout to age in it for a month or two. Think Denny's will work well for this application? I have 2 3-liter starters going right now, but wanted to do a...

Just a quick post about an upgrade I made recently. I wasn't thrilled with the temp control I was getting from taping my probe to the side of one of my plastic carboys -- I tested and got a pretty different reading when lowering the probe into the wort. So I picked up one of these for $12...

I've done two of these so far, and both have been phenomenal! I just do a pretty standard IPA grist (last one was 12 lbs of Golden Promise and a half lb of Crystal 40), about 30-35 IBUs at 60, and then several oz after flameout, and hopstand for about 40 minutes. Pitch a healthy starter of...

The first one came out so great, I just brewed another... This one was 12.5 lbs of Golden Promise, .75 lb of Crystal 40, then .75 oz Simcoe FWH, 1 oz Simcoe & 1 oz Amarillo at 10 mins, and 1 oz Simcoe and 2 oz Amarillo for a 40 min hop steep. Pitching a 1 gal starter of Wyeast California Lager...

I'm pretty sure Comet isn't a patented variety -- anyone have any leads about where I might pick up a rhizome or crown? Being in Oregon, I guess I would need an in-state source because of the quarantine. Thanks for any info!

I've been making glasses of nice hopped lemonade while harvesting, drying, and bagging hops. It's also a great way to test the potency of homegrown hops. I just throw a few (3-4 medium) cones into a half pint jar, add boiling water, and let steep for a minute. Then I taste (to test the hops)...

Due partly to limited freezer space, and partly because I went a little hops crazy, I went for two wet hop beers this year. The first is in the session IPA/hoppy APA range, and is just two-row, half a lb of crystal 40, and a bunch of Chinook (plus a shot of commercial Simcoe for bittering)...

This was a pretty interesting SMaSH. It's just 12 lb of Golden Promise mashed around 151 degrees, with 2 oz of Fuggles in the boil, 2 at 15 mins, 2 at flameout, and then another 2 dry hopped. Fermented around 67 degrees with Mangrove Jack's British Ale Yeast. A good way to really taste Fuggles...

So, I started a batch of raspberry wine yesterday (10 lb crushed fruit, 2.5 gal water, 5.5 lb sugar, acid blend, tannin, yeast nutrient and energizer), tossed in some campden last night, and was going to pick up some Montrachet today to pitch. Then I totally screwed up my leg, and I won't be...

I had a batch recently where I missed my OG by a mile (off by .015! Bad crush, I think), and I didn't have time to boil it down to a proper concentration. I pitched yeast anyway, but when I sampled a few days in, it was clearly much too hoppy for the session beer I had inadvertently created. As...