Recent content by Alphadawg

Quick update - it is fermenting. I pitched the yeast Friday evening with an OG of 1.058. When I went to bed last night, 4 days later, it was still at 1.057. This morning, there was airlock activity and the gravity was down to 1.049. I was so worried I had done something wrong!

Trying the Philly Sour yeast to make a simple raspberry sour. I've read about how it first makes lactic acid to lower the PH and then ferments alcohol. Here is my question. I bought a Tilt hydrometer and am trying it for the first time. OG was 1.058 and after 3.5 days, the current gravity is...

Now I just feel dumb. I shook the keg to distribute the apple juice concentrate. It is perfect now! I love this bar!

I tried making 2.5 gallons of hard cider and basically followed the Brulosphy recipe. It was for a 5 gallon batch and called for 2 12 oz cans of concentrate after fermentation and chemical stabilization. I used 1 can of concentrate. My cider is too sweet. Is there anything I can do at this...

Kegged the beer this weekend and it was fine. No noticeable infection. The beer was clear and tasted like Sam Adams lager. It was maybe a little more bitter than expected but still good. It looks like the mistake was not too serious but I know to be more careful from now on.

Quick update - I waited 3 weeks and checked FG. The OG was 1.050 and the FG was 1.010. I am cold crashing the beer to clear it up (it had lots of suspended yeast). The beer tasted fine and looked normal. Fingers crossed! BTW, I plan to keg the beer.

I would try to get the instructions from one of the wine making recipe kits and follow the suggested steps. I have made many batches of wine using the kits and it always comes out good. You have options with yeast. You can use a commercial yeast or let the grapes ferment naturally but I think...

The wort seems to be fermenting normally. I will update this thread once it is done. Fingers crossed!

Understood. I did sanitize the spoon I used to stir in the last LME. Also, I keg so hopefully no gusher problems. i understand it could still be contaminated. Not sure there was another option at that point but to continue on.

I'm not sure what the temperature was. Probably closer to 120 as it had been cooling for about 20 minutes in ice. I was cleaning up and noticed the can of LME on the counter ...Doh!

I am making a Sam Adams type of lager with an extract recipe. I was doing this while trying to work from home - that is my excuse as I was distracted. It called for some specialty grains, some DME and 2 cans of pils LME. I forgot to add the 2nd can of LME until after the wort was already off...

When I used the Philly Sour, I had no issues with carbonation in bottles. In fact, I added too much priming sugar and the beer was over carbed.

Skip trying to make IPAs for a while until you have the process down. These seem to be the easiest to mess up because of oxidation.

I am making a pale ale with dried sweet tangerine peel. It is a Northern Brewer recipe. The recipe says to add the tangerine (soaked in 6 oz of vodka) after a week of fermentation. I like to use gelatin to clarify the beer. I assume I do the gelatin a couple of weeks after the tangerine...

I am no expert but my SOP is to add about 1/4 of the top yeast to a can of Proper Starter (or make a starter with DME) about 2 days before I brew. It has always worked so far.