Recent content by Al-Kaholik

Thanks for the info guys - I actually run it through a filter first so the original water probably isn't as good. I just wanted to check since my brew turned out a bit awkward tasting. It wasn't horrible - just had an awkward/cheap taste

Nothing really appears to stand out too much.. maybe a little high on the bicarbonate and low chloride/sulfate? Not sure if that matters Any thoughts?

Drinking my first hefeweizen homebrew.. I put this one in the fridge prematurely (4 days into carbonation) just to try it. It's not half bad tasting just very sweet, since I didn't use enough water. Hopefully I don't end up in the ER. LOL!

I recently smelled my fermentor and thought "wow this really smells like bananas!" and did some googling and read some things that it could be esters or funky stuff going on. Glad to know I'm not the only one though. I used WB-06

I got this one off amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MXH3CH1?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details Just did my first brew session last week (it's fermenting now) and forgot to shake it or use this so that's good to hear that it still has a chance.

I have one similar to this guys'

Don't laugh - PBR

I just noticed the brew is giving off some banana-esque flavors. Hopefully no esters but just the natural aroma of the hefeweizen! Recipe says ferment for 3-7 but based on the forums here that seems pretty premature and it's better to wait more. Going to give it an extra week and see

Bought a disposable oxygen tank (benzomatic) for aerating wort. They are surprisingly hard to come by but was able to find one a few towns over. Thoughts on using this vs shaking the fermenter? Thanks

Thanks for the reply! Keeping yeast on hand seems like a good idea... I'll definitely do that in the future. I just took the lid off of my fermentor bucket and it appears to be fermenting (I see some kraussen on top) so maybe the seal on the bucket just isn't that good. In the future I'll...

Hey guys, I'm a guy in my mid twenties (maybe having a mid twenties crisis, I dunno) who just recently got into homebrewing. I recently bought a basic kit from a local homebrew store which contained two 5.5 gallon buckets for fermenting a bottling, an auto siphon, etc. I expanded on this with a...