Search results

I've got a porter I fermemented with the Lallemand London ESB yeast with an OG of 1.061 that has stopped at 1.036. The ferment was quick at 65 degrees with two other brews using Nottingham. They both finished at 1.012 as expected. The recipe was 8# Pale Malt 2# Munich Malt 1.5# Crystal 20 1.5#...

I've been propagating yeast for myself and my brew buds, primarily WLP-001 California Ale and WLP-530 Abbey Ale. I started with 1 liter starters, going through the step-up process to get multiple jars containing our typical requirement of 200 billion cells. This typically works out to about 75ml...

I have a Golden Strong Belgian that just came out of the fermentor. The FG is 1.006 according to two hydrometers and my new refractometer (corrections applied). The OG was 1.072. I tasted the sample used for the testing and it is good, with a pleasant fruity taste. But strangely, the...

I have a new refractometer I have been using for a while with favorable results, particularly when comparing to hydrometer readings. But I took a reading this afternoon that was unlike all others and I was wondering why. I have a Golden Strong Belgian that I started last Sunday. It came in low...

I'm playing around with carbonating my strawberry Skeeter Pee using forced carbonation. I have a kegging system for my brews, and a separate regulator for sodas, etc. I did a small test carb on a liter of Pee at 12 psi (normal beer carb level for me) and it was nice, but didn't have the...

This was a brew we ordered for our big brew party. It was a pickup order, but the dude who was in town doesn't know brewing (1st problem). Then when we got the goods that evening we didn't check it (2nd problem) so we didn't find out we were short hops while we had a chance to resolve the...

This past Monday I racked off a batch of cyser I created with POM Pomegranate Juice for flavor and coloring. It had been in the fermenter nine (9) days! The OG was 1.068 and the FG was 1.005 when we decided that was enough. I was looking for a semi-sweet finish, but it was too sweet when we...

This is a follow-up on the blueberry cyser I made back on March 15th, a little over 5 weeks ago. The recipe was: 2.5# of crushed blueberries 5# Sam's honey Mott's apple juice to fill 5 gallon carboy 1 packet Nottingham yeast, rehydrated 1 teaspoons yeast nutrient I measured a starting...

I helped one of my brew buds dry hop two 10 gallon batches of his pale ale with 2 oz. of Centennial leaf hops in each batch. When we were pushing the hops through the funnel into the sanke kegs we enjoyed the aroma of the hops and commented on how good they looked because they weren't crushed...

I've made cider/cyser now with EC-1118, S-04 and Nottingham yeasts. One thing that has been going through my mind late at night is the likelihood of continued fermentation and bottle bombs with S-04 and Nottingham if I let the ferment to completion. When brewing beer, the yeast consumes all the...

I put together a cyser with 8 cans of apple concentrate, 5 lbs. of honey, topped of with a bit more than 4 gallons of apple juice for a 5 gallon batch. The starting gravity was 1.080. I pitched the Safale US-04 yeast nine (9) days ago and it is now down to 1.045. I continue to see bubbles rising...

I have an Agata bench capper, and on my last batch I had about 50% failure on sealing and maintaining carbonation. I keg my beer and carbonate in the keg, the bottle as needed for special events. This is the fifth case I have bottled and the first with issues. I moved to the bench capper because...

I occasionally bottle my brew after it has been carbed in the keg for friends and road trips. I had always had good luck until my last effort. I bottled two cases of brew for my son. He has made it through one case so far and found four bottles with no carb, and two with chipped glass on the...

I just got back from a church camp-out where I made up a keg of Sprechers root beer. It was the hit of the evenings. We took vanilla ice cream, stored in ice and rock salt, to make root beer floats. Everyone kept coming back for more. I also made up a keg of Raspberry-Lemon Chrystal Light...

This past Saturday my brewbud and I cooked up the Centennial Blonde It was one of our smoother AG efforts, and the preliminary results look promising. One of the things we did this time was take out about a tablespoon from the mash after 5 minutes to measure the ph. We let it cool to 78 degrees...

I need some clarity on the sparge process... My current process is fly sparging, I think. After the mash period is completed I start the vorlauf and get a gallon that goes back into the 10 gallon cooler. If it is clear I then start to run the sparge into my keggle. I also start my pump and...

I am looking into the effects of my local water source on the mash ph, but the first problem I am facing is how and when to measure the mash ph. I have read that some folks mash in, read the ph, the start making adjustments on the fly to get the ph where they want/need it. On the other had, some...

I have brewed the AHS Miami Weiss Ale all-grain a couple of times and both times have had significant problems with yeast clumps and other nastiness that doesn't settle out in the fermenting bucket. When I go to transfer, either from the bottling spigot in the buckets or from an auto-siphon, I...

I had the opportunity to drink a nice dubbel last week and am thinking it would be nice to have on hand for Christmas parties and such. How long does a dubbel take to ferment and mature? How do I chose a recipe to deliver a good fruity and malty flavor? And what are the fermentation...

After reading another thread regarding the differences in full boil vs. partial boil and the effect on IBU's, I downloaded and started playing with the IBU estimations. It is clear there is a significant impact in going from a partial to a full boil that would explain why we have brewed beers...