I'm not exactly a beginner, but I feel like one again. I used to brew partial-mash ales, but somehow lost interest in it. Time to dust off the equipment and get back in. I have a 2.5 gallon batch of "Skeeter Pee" lemon wine bubbling away in a bucket, and next I want to make a 1 gallon batch of hard apple cider. Then get back into beer brewing about the time winter sets in. That gives me a few weeks to do research and order supplies. Maybe it'll all come back to me when I get started, but for now I can't remember much of anything.
Couple of questions:
I should probably throw away all my old hops in the freezer *except* for the Chinook pellets, right? Or are even the Chinooks stale by now? I'm also going to buy fresh hop pellets; probably Palisade because it's not too expensive and can do double-duty as bittering and flavoring.
I want to brew English-ish ESB's, but the local homebrew shop only has American 2-row malt, plus a great selection of specialty malts from all over the world. The 2-row is cheap, and the specialty malts are kind of expensive. All the SB and ESB recipes I see call for UK malts, especially Maris Otter. Will using American 2-row make much difference? I don't care if the style is a little off as long as it tastes good. Maybe add just a little victory or biscuit malt and call it good?
I'd like to use the local hard water for everything except sparging. They're using chloramine now instead of chlorine. What's the best way to dechlorinate the water, since chloramine doesn't evaporate out? (for some reason I think a Campden tablet will drive out chloramine but I don't know where I got that)
I was doing partial-mash because my pasta cooker lauter tun can only hold about 5 pounds of grain. That's probably where I'll start again. I suppose I could do all-grain and reduce the recipe down to 3 gallons...
That's enough for now
Thanks,
Bob in Minnesota
Couple of questions:
I should probably throw away all my old hops in the freezer *except* for the Chinook pellets, right? Or are even the Chinooks stale by now? I'm also going to buy fresh hop pellets; probably Palisade because it's not too expensive and can do double-duty as bittering and flavoring.
I want to brew English-ish ESB's, but the local homebrew shop only has American 2-row malt, plus a great selection of specialty malts from all over the world. The 2-row is cheap, and the specialty malts are kind of expensive. All the SB and ESB recipes I see call for UK malts, especially Maris Otter. Will using American 2-row make much difference? I don't care if the style is a little off as long as it tastes good. Maybe add just a little victory or biscuit malt and call it good?
I'd like to use the local hard water for everything except sparging. They're using chloramine now instead of chlorine. What's the best way to dechlorinate the water, since chloramine doesn't evaporate out? (for some reason I think a Campden tablet will drive out chloramine but I don't know where I got that)
I was doing partial-mash because my pasta cooker lauter tun can only hold about 5 pounds of grain. That's probably where I'll start again. I suppose I could do all-grain and reduce the recipe down to 3 gallons...
That's enough for now
Thanks,
Bob in Minnesota