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I just helped my brother brew a coffee stout kit. I was surpised by the amount of coffee grounds included. The directions said to to rouse the yeast "when ever you feel like it". The stuff looks delicious, but I was wondering when would be the right time to drink such stuff. Breakfast seems a...

If you used a lot of sugar rather than malt extract in your recipe, this could have given the cidery taste you noticed. This would also account for the high starting gravity you mentioned. Also could be from contamination. Next time use all malt, boil everything and use strict sanitation... I'm...

You might also try a solution of baking soda and let it sit over night. I don't usually do this and just go ahead and ignore the smell. I don't think it makes any difference. Just another thing to worry about...

It is hard to overpitch yeast but possible. Over pitching could cause the beer to have a yeasty taste (doh), result in inefficient fermentations, thin beer, beer with "yeast bite", explosions and occasionally hair to grow on your palms. Best to stick to recommended pitching rates.

I also bottled a "big beer" the other day that had been in the secondary for awhile. One technique that would help is "racking" the yeast when transferring and priming. Racking is scraping a good bunch of settled yeast into suspension during the transfer which effectively increases the amount of...

Well "nasty" aftertastes can come in many forms. I'm assuming you tasted an astringent or more likely a bitter aftertaste. My green beers (and that beer is pretty green) frequently have a bitter taste because the bittering hop flavors have not had a chance to mellow out. Give it time. If it is...

I would say it is way to early to be thinking you have a stuck fermentation especially with a lager. My advice would be to forget about it for a few weeks and go fishing.

"Bad mashing" would be if you did not convert all the starches in the grain to fermentable sugars. The main cause of this would be mashing at the wrong temperatures or not long enough. Either too high or too low. Also not rinsing the grain (sparging) after mashing could give you low yeilds. I...

My local homebrew shop did an article on this recently and said that a "cream ale" was big hit with the casual beer drinking crowd at a wedding. Easy to brew and appeals to a wide variety of tastes.

Were these extract brews or mashed grain recipies? Bad mashing efficiencies would account for the low SG's. Assuming you used extracts, were the recipes for 5 gallons? I would doubt a hydrometer could be that far off even if it was defective.

I've actually tasted beer fermented with Fleishman's bread yeast before and only one word can describe it: Vile. It was my brother's first batch back in 1974 with off the grocery store shelf malt. Took forever to ferment and was drunk directly out of the fermenter after about a month. No sissy...

Hint of advice: Don't look too closely at your fementing beer if you can help it when first starting out. However, it is an interesting thing fermentation and hard to resist getting up-close-and-personal with the yeasty beasty. Just don't get too excited about all that weird stuff in there...

Hint of advice: Don't look too closely at your fementing beer if you can help it when first starting out. However, it is an interesting thing fermentation and hard to resist getting up-close-and-personal with the yeasty beasty. Just don't get too excited about all that weird stuff in there...

How long have you been fermenting this beer? Was there fermentation time prior to the diacetyl rest?

Also keep in mind that you don't need to go b***s and all to make good beer. A regular stove, a reasonably large brew pot and a quality malt extract kit with specialty grains will make you good stuff on your first batch. While going all grain on the first batch is admirable, it isn't really...

My first batch many years ago showed no fermentation after 6 days. Still as a pond...My "supplier" sold me dead dried yeast. He apologized and I got a replacement. The beer started up just fine after that but as I remember, it had a slightly "funky" nose. I invited my college buddies in and it...

Next up on my brew list is an Irish Red ale and from the looks of the recipe these things are heavy malty and light hoppy. The SG target is supposed to be 70. Grainy a little bit too but not too much. How long did you steep your grains and what were they? Also steeping too hot (>180 degrees) for...

Great tip Yooper! I love HowmeBrewTalk for tips like this. One problem however: I don't have a dishwasher. Dang!

65% efficiency is realistic. I get about 60% + and I don't really sparge very well using the mesh bag method of Homer Simpson Mashing. Just don't forget to add a little Irish Moss. The recipe sounds very tasty...I have never used grains made from Otters (hair might be a problem), but I have used...

The method probably works fine if you rinse and sanitize well. The theoretical problem might be that bacteria are used in some fruit and wines to make vinagar. For example apple juice to vinager or some wine vinegars. You would not want any of these beasties in your beer as they would eat that...