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Any thoughts on making an ordinary bitter with American Ale yeast (s-05) probably or possibly Nottingham instead of english yeast. The reason I would try this is that I prefer the flavor of English hops over American hops, but do not like the "twanginess" of english yeast. I prefer a clean...

Now that I have gone all grain I am trying to get a better understanding of the whole water chemistry thing. I found this on our water dept's webiste. Is this info of any use to me for brewing or do I need to contact them to get the exact mineral content? Thanks From website: "Do we...

I am going to be making my first porter but mistakenly ordered a wrong ingredient for it. Instead of the simpsons crystal, I got 1lb of caramunich malt. In what way will this change the beer I was trying brew? (color/taste/etc) Anyone ever used caramunich malt in a porter? Grain Bill...

I am brand new to kegging and just got the system I got for Christmas set up. I am worried though that my regulator may not be functioning correctly. I am using the 'set and forget' method to carbonate my beer and have the regulator set to 12. I check on it throughout the day and notice...

If I wanted to brew a beer that had a pronounced hop aroma and flavor without adding much bitterness, what would be the best way to do it? What differences could be expected from adding hops at flameout vs dry hopping?

Ok, so I am going to be brewing my 2nd all grain batch this weekend. The first one I used bottled spring water but doing that ends up adding another $10 to my batch of beer. So I have been reading this forum trying to figure out if it's ok to use tap water. There seem to be some people who...

I've got a batch of beer sitting in the primary right now that I can tell will be good eventually but will definitely require some aging to get there. My question is, should I leave it in the primary for a longer period or bottle it and let it age in bottles? Where does beer do a better job of...

I just finished my first PM, a West Coast Pale Ale PM kit from AHS. I think I got really crappy efficiency out of the 3 lbs of grain it came with because I was supposed to finish with a SG of 1.05 and finished with 1.04 instead. What kind of difference will this make to the finished beer?

What gives hefs that really creamy mouthfeel? I just made my first one and the flavor is just where it should be but it doesnt have that creamy mouthfeel that commercial hefs have. Does that come from using extract?

Now that the weather here is getting warmer, I am now for the first time having trouble with my fermentation temps. I brewed an Irish Red Ale this weekend and the air temperature has been around 70-75 degrees the entire time, so I'm sure the temp in the fermenter is a few degrees warmer than...

I just brewed my first hefe and had a huge and healthy fermentation. Had to rig my first blowoff tube and clean up my first mess. Anyway, fermentation is now done (it's been about 10 days) but there is still a thick, frothy krausen sitting on top of the beer. All my other beers the krausend...

If your beer is hazy/cloudy when you bottle it... will it be hazy after it conditions or can it clear up some while in the bottle?

Just finished bottling my 2nd batch of brew and had some problems with the auto-siphon which are making me worry about oxidation. I could not get a steady siphon going and had to keep pumping it and every time I pumped it it would shoot airbubbles up into the beer that was already in the...

I just dry hopped my beer for the first time and was wondering how "hoppy" i should expect it to be. The beer was an english bitter kit from NB, and after tasting the hydrometer sample I didn't think it had quite the amount of hoppiness I was looking for so I decided to throw some hops into the...

Just cracked open a bottle of my 1st batch of homebrew after 2 weeks in bottles and it definitely has a taste that I don't like. I am hoping this taste will settle out because I don't think I can drink 2 cases of it. Anyway, I took a look through Palmer's list of common off-flavors and I...

Being the beginner that I am, I ordered a Lager kit but didn't realize that I had to do anything different to actually make it a lager. Since then I've read How to Brew and Homebrewing for Dummies and realize what I've done is made an ale. The beer is bottle conditioning right now but what...

I just bottled my first batch of beer 3 days ago and looking in at the bottles it appears that alot of them have some sort of black/dark film on the bottom. It almost looks like algae or something! I've read on here that there is supposed to be yeast sediment at the bottom but I always imagined...

Getting ready to bottle my first batch on Sunday and I've just one question. My equipment kit came with the bottling bucket that has a spigot and a bottle filler. So do I attach the bottle filler to the spigot and use that to fill the bottles or can I just fill them right from the spigot? Does...

First I want to thank you guys who have been answering my virgin brewer questions on here. I've honestly gotten better information from reading this site than from the books I bought on home-brewing. My first batch is now one week into the primary and everything went real smooth except for 2...

Hey guys, first time brewer here with a question about sanitation. From all I've been reading good sanitation is one the most important parts of the process so I want to make sure I'm doing it right. The instructions on the packet of Easy Clean that I have tell me that it should have 1 minute...