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Yesterday I went to a local microbrewery and helped out the brewers for some additional education. I highly recommend doing this if you can make friends with some local brewers. I also had them taste all of my homebrews, and the most consistent response to all of my beers was high phenolics (and...

I agree with Boerderij_Kabouter. I've always done this and it's great. It really takes no time at all if you are diligent about cleaning your bottles right after you drink a beer out of one. You just set it and forget it, let it cool, and all your bottles are sterilized until you need them...

Yeah...NYC tap water still gets cloudy sometimes and settles...kind of like a well poured Guinness...I always assumed that was just air bubbles. Anyway I don't really drink it and I use Poland Spring for brewing, but I thought it'd be good enough for bottle rinsing!!!

That's the thing...they all smelled bad. Like 50 bottles. That said, some were worse than others, which may correlate to ones that I left more water in (some I shook out better). So I don't think its a dirty bottle issue per se. It is a REALLY bad smell that is still apparent today. The closest...

I'm not sure if this is it or not, but I noticed in each bottle there's a little "puddle" formed on the side of each. They were laying on their side and any leftover water must have collected here. Do you think the water getting super hot inside the bottle did something to the glass? Or maybe...

Today I was bottling and I baked the bottles in the oven. When I went to bottle, the bottles had a terrible smell in them. I can't really describe it...just really bad...maybe a sulphery and burnt chemicals are good descriptors. The thing is I've done this many times before and never had this...

In retrospect, I'm on the fence about this. I will throw out the milled grains but what about the LME? I'm brewing up a saison tomorrow and the LME is just the right amount for it. It's been in a sealed white bucket from AHBS and sitting in the fridge since it arrived...gulp...4 months ago...

Thanks Vic, I actually LOVE the "Similar Threads" thing below. By typing up my question and posting it, this system automatically gave me postings that answered my question....much better than searching the forum for a few keywords. Anyway, the LME is in a big white bucket from Austin Homebrew...

And that's also what makes Imperial IPAs both amazing and frustrating to make. You want those hops before they go away, but you gotta wait for the rest of the beer to catch up... Why is it that everything that is so good must have a maddening trade-off. Good thing we have previous batches of...

I think this is a rite of passage, so welcome to homebrewing. This happened to me on a 90 minute clone and the beer turned out totally fine. Beer's pretty hardy, and remember that your beer is already well into fermentation and those yeasties can out-compete bacteria. I never use airlocks...

I made an order back in March for some milled specialty grains (~2lbs) and some LME (~5lbs) from AHBS. Well I never got around to making that particular batch because a couple other recipes jumped up to the top of the list. Now it's a bit too hot for me to ferment that style of beer, and...

If you use a carboy as a primary this wont work, but I always pour my wort through a large kitchen strainer that rests on top of my primary bucket. It works great, gets a lot of crap out, and also does a heck of a good job aerating. Something like this: 10" Single Mesh Strainer (13-0652)...

That's what I thought as well. Just wait it out.... What made me nervous is that I previously made a fantastic 9.5% beer that was great and it carbed in less than 2 weeks. But then I used a Brit Ale yeast, and it was also the only ferm I've had that needed a blow off tube, which I installed...

I've done about 7 5-gal batched now and all have worked out with awesome results. But over two weeks ago I bottled my IIPA. It went from 1.082 to 1.016. At just over a week I racked to secondary. At about 2.5 weeks, I bottled. I did the same thing I always do when I bottled...3/4 cup corn...

I got the Double Blast Bottle Washer, which I highly recommend for rinsing bottles and carboys. Anyway, the carboy nozzle fits inside the tubing perfectly so it sets a jetstream of water through the tubing. In fact, before I bought a short garden hose I used this method to clean my buckets as...

The vinyl tubing that came with my kit fits perfectly in the grommit. Actually, you have to work pretty hard to get it in there, but that makes me feel good that it's making a good seal. I've been considering cutting the edge of the tubing on an angle to make a point of sorts to make it easier...

So guys, curious what could possibly make the beer change in a negative way as it's aging. I know of: Light: skunkiness from hops Possible infections: creating off flavors Oxidation: creating cardboard off flavor Anything else? Reason I ask is I had a Red Ale that tasted off after a week...

I think you're calling out the risk for hot-side aeration. Some people say it's a myth at homebrewing scale... Regardless strainers definitely aerate like crazy...in fact, I find its the easiest way to aerate my COOLED wort when I'm pouring it into my fermenter. So for the cost of a grain bag...

Most kitchen stores (e.g., Sur La Table) have long muslin you can buy. I think it's meant to be used for soups or maybe stuffing in turkeys. They are about 1' wide and 4' long or something along those lines. I've used them in a pinch, just fold it over to increase the strength and cut to size...

IMHO, DFH 90 min is a great beer to try. I know they get a lot of perhaps excess credit, but to my tastes it's a perfect example of how malt can balance hops and vice versa. Yes, DFH IPA's are malty, but to me the usage of malts with high IBUs is a major difference in IPA's that could warrant a...