Search results

Long story short, I'm brewing with honey for the first time (2.5 lbs. of it along with 7.5 lbs. DME in a 6-gallon batch, been 5 weeks now), and wanted to make certain it was fermented out before bottling. So I gently stirred it up with a sanitized spoon. How long should I wait for the yeast...

I laid down a batch of Trippel back in February, and have sampling a bottle a month as a sort of special treat to myself. It is really starting to come into its own now -- smooth and rich and plummy and delicious, with no trace of alcohol heat that was evident earlier. I think I'll make an...

Just got a scratch n' dent chest freezer set up with a digital thermostat, and thought a good way to break it in would be with a good cool-fermenting ale. Got the wort cooled, pitched my yeast... let it sit out for a couple-three hours, and the vial felt room-temp to the touch... same as I've...

Long story short, we had a hot spell recently while I had 5 gallons of English bitters perking away in the garage. I put it in a plastic tubby with ice and (tried) to keep it cool, but the SWMBO objected to me constantly depleting our precious ice supply, so it got preeeeetty warm the last...

I have a fine deal pending on an old chest freezer, and with the thermostat installed I was figuring on just setting it at about 58 degrees and using it as my all-purpose miniature root cellar. Plenty of room for two buckets of lager or kolsch ale, plus some sausages or hams hanging, plus a...

5 lbs. pilsen DME 2.5 lbs. white wheat .25 lbs. Special B 1 oz. Hallertau White Labs WLP400 Belgian Wit 4 lbs. pulverized Granny Smiths in secondary Carb with a full cup of table sugar. This is one of the earliest beers I made -- and it started out as an accident. I wanted to make a...

Started a batch of Belgian Saison a few days ago. After several days of battling the NorCal heat with wet towels, ice water, etc. I gave up and brought it inside. As I did so, some water splashed on the lid. After I put the bucket down, I kept an eye on it. Sure enough, there is a ring of...

There's a good several inches of head space in my brew bucket, but this WLP400 Belgian Wit yeast is so potent that it's blowing half-fermented beer up into the first elbow of the water lock. Half the water has been blown out all over the lid of the bucket, and what remains is a sort of light...

Yes, you read that correctly. I've seen this suggested in other forums (in long extinct threads, so I can't exactly ask for an explanation). The idea is that adding a bag of flaked wheat to your wort as you pitch your bacteria/yeast combination gives the bacteria some extra food to munch on, and...

A week ago I dumped the wort containing nine pounds of DME and a vial of WLP500, White Labs' Trappist Ale Yeast, into a sterilized 5-gallon bucket. For two days, there was no visible activity. The third morning I was greeted by the clinging remnants of a 1.5" thick layer of foam that had risen...

Month and a half ago I bottled up a batch of pale ale I made using White Labs London Ale Yeast. I was so pleased with the result that I elected to save the yeast for another batch. I carefully siphoned the *very* thick yeast cake (it had been a month in primary) into a sanitized plastic Coke...

Yes, this is an odd one. Bear with me, gents: One of my hobbies is recreating (and cooking, and eating) historic recipes, and my interest in the field has grown to encompass beer. I have many Renaissance-era beer and ale recipes to follow, but I am receiving signals from the source material...

This is my third batch of ale, and my first where I've tried my hand at a fruit ale. Thought my Wit would go nice on top of four pounds of fresh shredded Pippin apples, and thought the steeping bag was small enough that it'd remain below the surface of the beer after I tied it with (dipped in...

It's my understanding that Belgian ale bottles are made especially strong to withstand the extra carbonation generated by their lambics.... but I'm lazy and cheap, and don't wish to invest in a floor corker, and have nowhere to put it. Champagne/sparkling wine bottles, on the other hand, *can*...

My first batch of brew -- the Williams Belgian Dubbel kit -- sat in the garage for three days in temps ranging from the mid 70's to low 80's. Then it started to heat up some more, and I got alarmed enough to go out and buy a plastic tubbie, stick the fermenter in it, and fill it half full of...