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I pour my beer until I see the particles of sediment start to drain, but lately (could just be imagination) I've been thinking that I notice some off flavors. How "deep" do you pour your beers, and how much effect does the pour have on the flavor, versus the quality of the brew process, for...

Bottling up 5 gals of a honey brown ale kit from Nothern Brewer (smelled real good, nice color, etc). Using the hand capper, put the first bottle on the kitchen counter, capped it, squeezed the capper, and just obliterated it. Glass and beer everywhere. I can't be sure that some glass didn't...

I bought 2 1-gal growlers (full of beer) from Whole Foods a while ago, and I'm wondering if I can use them for bottling up some homebrew. They are twist tops though, so I don't know how long they will keep the carbonation. The beer that was in them was still carbonated a week later, despite...

Here's a great way to take a homebrew kit and give it a little bit of your own personal brewing style. Order 2 kits, a honey brown ale and a british bitter. Put the smack packs in the fridge. Brew up the honey brown, but instead of grabbing the correct yeast pack for it, be an idiot and grab...

I got a couple of kits from Northern Brewer, but I of course realized too late that I forgot to tell them not to crush the grain, as I am not planning to brew these batches for at least a month, maybe more. The grains are in a ziploc type bag, you can definitely smell them outside the bag, so...

Is that low? This is my 1st stout, I decided to be a little lazy and used a cooper's irish stout kit, 3.3 lbs of muntons pale LME, 1.25 lbs of flaked oats steeped, in 3 gallons of water. I pitched at 75 degrees, but I figured that stout SGs were around 1060, is my memory faulty? It sure...

This was my 2nd brew, bottled it last night so that a few bottles will be ready in time for Thanksgiving. Got the recipe from BYO, reduced some of the extras like cinammon and honey so hopefully the beer part will be upfront with the spice and whatnot subtly in the background. SG was 1060, got...

I am going to brew up an oatmeal Irish stout, using the Coopers Irish Stout kit. It comes prehopped, and apparently pre-grained as well. I have an additional can of light LME (3.3 lbs), and a pound each of patent, roasted barley, and marris otter. I am going to steep the oats, but if I throw...

I'm not trying to be cheap here, but my LHBS still hasn't sent out my order, so I am short new bottle caps for my pumpkin ale, which will have been in secondary for 2 weeks this weekend, and I want to get it in bottles. I used some caps off of commercial beers that I drank as a test on my 1st...

A coworker got a little Irish moss plant, and then gave it to me. I think I will take it home and try to grow it, is there anything that I would need to do to it to make it good for clearing beer? I haven't used Irish moss yet in a beer so I don't know anything about it. Thanks

There is a homebrew shop on Long Island that I have now ordered from twice. They say that if you order before 2 pm your order generally ships out that day, but my package took 2 weeks (and several calls) to get to me in Brooklyn an hour away, apparently because they were waiting on a delivery...

They are going to be treated to the whole batch, thru their ears. I did an all extract recipe that I found on BYO, which I then modified slightly by reducing the amount of pumpkin (I only used 1 30 oz can) and by reducing the spices (in this case, only cinammon). As I started to get the brew...

I am gonna brew up my pumpkin ale tonite, I am going to follow the recipe I found on BYo to an almost T, and do a 2 gal boil and top off in the primary. Will 3 gals of cold water cool my wort down quickly enough (I don't want to be up until 3 in the morning again), or do I need to pick up a bag...

10 days in the primary, bubbling stopped after about a week, got a FG of 1008 (give or take, my hydrometer tilts). Bottling wasn't that bad, even working by myself at midnite (although it definitely would have been quicker and more fun to have someone to help). I must have topped off to a...

I'm not really set up to have my star san laying around, and I think it is kind of wasteful to use it just to sanitize my ladle (for taking a sample to get my FG and see if I am done fermenting). I was thinking that I could microwave a cup of water for a few minutes (or even just boil some...

They are those plastic mugs, have like water or something in between the walls of the glass, so you can freeze them and chill your beer out super cold. I did a google search, but came up with only "novelty" drinking stores that want to charge ridiculous prices. Anyone have a line on a...

Well, I got the first boil done and it's in the fermenter. It is a completely random mixture of light extract (both DME and LME), dry ale yeast, and Glacier and Galena hops. Oh, and a combined pound of cara-pils and 40L crystal were steeped in as well. Hops were ordered prior to really doing...

I recently had a few pints of a pumpkin ale in a bar, did not get the brand, but it was fantastic, and you could definitely taste a pumpkinny flavor. Last nite I had a pumpkin ale by Dogfish Head, which listed on the label that they used real pumpkins, brown sugar, allspice, nutmeg and...

Due to an oversight, my kit came without the steeping bag, so I guess I am either gonna grab a nylon stocking or a paint strainer bag to use instead, do I have to do anything (wash first, etc.) to either one before I can use it? It's easier (although more embarrassing) for me to get the nylons...

I am planning on doing my 1st brew this weekend, nothin fancy, but I also want to try to get a pumpkin ale going to be ready by Thanksgiving. I bought a 2nd fermenter to use for Apfelwein, but as I am reading about pumpkin ale it occurs to me that I should maybe hold off on that so that I can...