Search results

I just moved into a new apartment. The kitchen faucet is a Kohler pull-down faucet. It's got buttons right on the nozzle for stopping water and for changing to spray. You cannot screw an immersion chiller hose onto it. Any advice on how to use an immersion chiller with it? Same thing for a...

I procrastinated on brewing and now because of some health issues, minor surgery, I will not be able to brew for at least a month. But I made a starter 3 weeks ago and had my grains crushed around that time. When I am ready to brew again do I just use my yeast starter and crushed grains? The...

I went to bottle 5 1/2 gal. of bitter tonight. I cleaned 36 12 oz. bottles and 6 22 oz. bottle. I feel dumb. The worst part is the bitter is tasting good so far. I wasted a good 6 pack or 2. Doh!

I know this has nothing to do with brewing but a lot of people use oxyclean here. My kitchen floor is old and stained, but the worst part is that I made the mistake of using mop n glo on it for a while. What's left is a dirty grime that I have scrubbed and cannot get off. I tried scrubbing with...

I want to brew the American Amber Ale from BCS. It calls for .7 lbs. of Munich LME. My LHBS does not carry Munich LME, although they may be able to get it. But it's such a small amount and they only sell pre-packaged LME in 3.3 packages and I don't want to waste all the extra LME. Any...

So I decided to take a wine tasting class. There were a few reasons. I like wine, women like wine, I like women, you never know who takes the class. Well the wine part has worked out, which is great. I am one of the more active participants in the class, not afraid to give my opinions. For...

Is there any reason to decant? I think I just pour the whole starter into the fermenter but always like to check. The starter is 1.8 liters for a 5.5 gal. batch. My intention was to brew yesterday but things did not work out for that. I would assume that decant is only good if you let the...

I'd like to sample a real British Mild and I live in NYC. Does anyone know of a bar that carries a Mild on draught or a store that has it in bottles? Thanks!

Or do you just rinse it? I would think if i rinse right after bottling then i am cool to just sanitize before bottling.

Last night I went to an Austrian restaurant in Manhattan. It's an excellent gourmet restaurant. They only had 1 austrian beer, Goesser ( don't know how to do an umlaut ), the rest were German. They did have a few wheat beers including a Berliner Weisse ( forgot the brand ). I thought that when...

I have some bottles that were cleaned and then stored in a closet. Is there any reason to clean them again other than rinsing? If so, how long in PBW? I am not looking to skip sanitizing in Star-San, just soaking in PBW. Thanks!

I have 2 fermentors, one is a carboy and the other is a plastic bucket. What is the most accurate, but relatively easy, way to monitor the temperature of the beer as it is fermenting? I currently have my bucket in a tub with water and a towel and fan arrangement to fight the heat but I am flying...

Okay, that is a cheap joke. But when I go to rack my beer the tubing curls up, as expected, since it has been stored in a loop. Do more experienced brewers weigh down the end of the tubing? Any ideas?

After brewing I clean my immersion chiller with dish soap and water. But after a few uses it can get pretty dirty. Do I want to soak it in PBW ( or oxiclean )? I tried that and the PBW water turned green. Do I want to then rinse and soak in an acid solution like star san? Thanks!

Until I build something for fermentation temperature control I am setting my fermenter in a container with water, drape a towel over the fermenter and blow air on it with a fan. So the towel is over the lid of the fermenter. Is there any way that this is unsanitary? I'm using this with a bucket...

or Pitch before Oxygenating or it doesn't matter? Yesterday I brewed and pitched, stirred the yeast in and then did a 15 sec. blast of oxygen, waited a minute and then did another 15 sec. blast. My guess is that is fine but I figure it is good to ask.

I had a batch that went sour, infected probably, and because of other things in my life it stayed in my plastic fermenting bucket for 2 months. Will cleaning the bucket in PBW get rid of any sourness or is my bucket ruined? My plan was to rinse it tonight and fill it with a PBW solution...

Last week I went to bottle and had a bit of a problem, I posted about it in the bottling & kegging forum. I had to rack the beer back into the fermenter with the priming solution in it. So it roused up the yeast a lot. I was advised to give it a week to settle again. Tonight I took a peek and I...

Tonight I prepared to bottle. I had clean bottle and prepared everything. I took a sample and it finished a hair high but tasted great, an English Pale Ale, clean with a nice hop taste. I siphoned carefully into my bottling bucket and added the priming sugar. I then lifted the bottling bucket...

I brewed a Mild on Friday. My apartment is hot and the stick on thermometer read 74'. So last night I went to Home Depot and got a container to hold the carboy and water. I used cold tap water and draped a wet t-shirt over the fermenter. The water was cold. This morning my fermenter is...