Recent content by amber-ale

I individually prime the bottles then bottle. But if you add powdered dextrose then add wort, you must be quick because the crystals in the sugar will trigger the dissolved co2 to come out of the wort= fizz. I dissolve the priming sugar 1 teaspoon per 500 ml bottle in water and divide the...

I have tried different yeasts (including bread yeast) in making beer. all yeast will make alcohol for you, but each yeast gives a different flavor profile to the end product. Bread yeast was selectively bred to produce fast fermentation with lots of bubbles (so you get fluffy bread) but...

relax, this is supposed to be fun.... KISS principle why are you shaking your mead 3 times a day? Shake ONCE when you first start to mix and incorporate air and then LEAVE IT ALONE for 1-2 weeks. but stir/dunk your fruit raft twice a day with a sanitized big spoon (not wooden) to wet the...

or use the bland beer to experiment with different additives. spike each glass with ... your favorite liqueur, hop concentrates, fruit, spices etc. use it as the base for a new future unique recipe. or give it to people who only like light beers use as slug baite in your garden or people...

I just wanted to thank you for your recipe on dandelion wine. it turned out to be FABULOUS!! the gardeners at work were all laid off for the summer due to COVID closures and there was a bumper crop of unsprayed dandelions. We even tried freeze distilling some of it. Gardener's Revenge Weed...

no honey is the wrong honey, unless you are an experienced mead maker trying to make a specific flavor. different honeys give you different flavors, but they all make mead sooner or later. relax and have fun. I can't get anything but grocery store honey and I still get fabulous meads. I...

you should be pushing your fruit under the liquid once to twice a day. do you hear any co2 escaping? any tiny bubbles foaming up as you dunk? mead doesn't always produce as much gas as beer, so the airlock often doesn't move much. (except for BOMM meads) leave it alone, "punch" down your...

or add a sour juice and allow it to age a bit more. tasting and supplementing as you go until you get the right flavour... what flavor is the original batch?

6 hours seem really long. Yo brew day is 4 hours from initial set up to pots clean/ beer in ferment or. KISS principle......keep it simple....

Do smaller batches....more flavours, less work, less to store

I v tried the hopspider. Works well.

Boiling (rolling boil, at sea level) for 5 minutes also "sterilizes". If it's good enough For surgical instruments in the field, it's good enough for beer. Yes I have tested this micro biologically.

or it has fermented enough that it has used up all the sugars and is now "dry". what yeast did you use? is it a tasty sour or nasty tasting sour? like yogurt?

the BOMM method of fermenting mead specifically recommends adding potassium (potassium carbonate) in the initial startup mixture. its not the potassium part you need to worry about. baseline. is your yeast growing? see any little bubbles along the sides of your fermenter? if the yeast is...

1) time... gravity will eventually clear it for you 2) cold.....your fermenter should be small enough to fit in the fridge 3) serve your beer in frosted glasses and ignore the haze.