Recent content by amber-ale

Have you tried contacting your local SCA (society for creative anachronism (sp?)) group? Mead and historical re-enactment people are a natural pairing.

Recently my municipality changed my tap water ph from about 7.6 to about 8. (maybe slightly higher) I have never before needed to adjust my mash or sparge water ph. Do I need to reconsider now? 1) I live in the Canadian pacific north west and we have very soft water 2) I usually brew...

Assuming it is not diluted honey, it should be fine. Not much grows in thick sugary honey, the sugar sucks all the water out of the bacteria , essentially killing vegetative bacteria. This is not the case for bacterial spores, since they are like bacterial seeds, not actively growing...

I just read an article stating that psyllium husk alone is less effective than psyllium plus an egg in no-wheat bread recipes

Since rye flour doesn’t have the same amount/type of gluten-ish proteins, it has trouble retaining the yeast farts to give a nice bubbly rise. So I add 1 tablespoon whole husk psyllium (powdered psyllium needs less for the same action) . Then I get a nice, normal looking loaf. Psyllium...

I make 100% rye bread (no wheat flour at all)….. but some of this may be helpful…. Rye flour needs more liquid than wheat flour-enough that the dough is soft and a bit shiny. If you don’t have enough liquid, the bread will stay a dense, but tasty, loaf/brick. Your dough doesn’t look wet...

Definitly switch to vodka. You should be able to taste it if the mead has gone bad. Fortunately it was a few months old when this happened, so rhe existing alcohol should have protected your batch. But maybe strain the mead before bottling…. Also why are you having so much suck back? The...

Could you “dry hop” with orange zest to add sparkle and orange flavour? Maybe 25% bitter orange peel and 75%regular orange peel/dried peel? Or whole mandarin orange peel with the pith Or a bit of grand marnier/triple sec/curecao etc? Just add directly to a (one) bottle to add sparkle?

Add gelatin and be able to eat your beer !!

That's great,!! Solution found!

Why don’t you just put it into two or three smaller fermentors that you can carry up to the warmer areas of your house? Then wrap them in some towels to insulate and stabilize temperature fluctuations. Pick your beer style, yeast and fermentation location based on what temperature you...

Isn’t Metamucil just psyllium husk? Wouldn’t that create a gel that would make it hard to lauter/decrease the volume harvested / give you jellie beer in the bottle? Depending on what stage you added it? Try it with a mini batch and tell us what happened!!

First time in 10 years I’ve been able to have wheat free bread that mixes, cooks and tastes “”normal” . Isn’t gritty, bland rubbery or $9 pet loaf. Just 4/5 rye (or barley) flour 1/5 tapioca starch Salt sugar yeast Lemon juice Psyllium husk and an egg

So what ARE you doing Exactly