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I am just getting into water chemistry issues and working my way through the Bru'n Water information. I'm not a scientist, so it has been slow going, but I am looking forward to finally addressing this part of my home brewing process. Currently, all I do is add a campden tab to address the...

I've noticed a chemically, astringent kind of off flavor in most of my beers, especially noticeable in my pale ale and other lighter beers (but it is present in the darker beers as well). At first I thought it was the dreaded "extract twang", but I went all grain last year and its still there...

I am brewing early tomorrow morning, but need to take a break mid-morning to run my son to his martial arts class. That means I need to find a good time to take approx. 90 minute break. I'm doing a simple all grain recipe using an igloo cooler conversion system, batch sparge. Should I pour...

I made a pale ale that fermented out much lower than I had planned - down to 1.006 (I know why it happened, but its not the point of my question so I'll just leave it at that). This was supposed to be a nice balanced APA with about 35 ibu and 5.5% abv. Since it fermented out so low, Hopville...

I know there are several of different techniques to keep the dry hop residue out of the bottling buckets, but I've not found one that works well for me. I tried using a hop bag stuffed into my secondary carboy for dry-hopping and did not like the result - too messy, and I get the feeling the...

I am brewing a porter this afternoon w/OG of 1062 using Wyeast 1056. Making a starter this morning, expecting to get it underway approx. 8 hours before pitching, I got distracted and pitched my smack pack into the starter wort at approx. 160 degrees (I misread the thermometer, thought it had...

I brewed a big brown ale about a month ago - essentially the "Janet's Brown Ale" recipe from Jamil's book, but tweaked a bit with some brown sugar to bump it up a bit to 1.078 OG. I used Wyeast 1450 (1L starter) and kept it in the mid-upper 60's. It fermented well down to about 1.024, then...

I brewed an extract barelywine on July 3 - using the "Old Monster" recipe from Jamil's Brewing Classic Styles book (slightly modified), and ended up with a measured OG of 1.122. I pitched it directly onto a Wyeast 1056 yeast cake from a 5 gal. batch of medium gravity ale. After about a month...

A neighbor has a huge hop plant in his yard and is giving me a large bag full of hops this week. I'm planning to brew this weekend using these hops and would appreciate any tips or suggestions. My plan is to make a very basic pale ale (extract), maybe with a bit higher OG in the 1065 range...

I brewed a porter about six weeks ago - using the northern brewer kit "Midnight Beatdown Wheaton Porter" (http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/beerkits/PM-MidnightWheatenPorter.pdf. This was my first partial mash, and I think I learned a great deal about my technique and am confident...

I'm brewing an amber tomorrow and just looking at a two different extract recipes (N.B.'s kit v Palmer's book) I noticed that (almost) the only difference between the two recipes is that one puts all the LME in at the beginning of the boil and the other has me adding half at the beginning and...

I think my next purchase is going to be a chest freezer as I want to start brewing lagers. I'm going to start combing craigslist to get an idea of what's out there and would appreciate any suggestions. I'm not making a kegerator - just want to be able to control my temps for up to 2 carboys...

I've done 4 extract brews and love my new hobby. I'm lucky to live in Milwaukee where we have an excellent resource with the Northern Brewer retail store about 10 minutes away from my house. I enjoy the bigger gravity beers and am thinking about doing some lagers, and one topic that has...