Recent content by austinb

Thanks for the info, do you think the vacuum chamber even with the lower alcohol boiling point would boil off more flavors than heating the beer to 170 without vacuum? Based off your post it sounds like at the very least this may not achieve the result of preserving flavors vs just a standard...

Thanks, that answers two of my questions, now let’s see if anyone has been crazy enough to try a vacuum chamber at home for home brew NA or if I have to be the first one! Hopefully someone knows enough about the science of it to chime in even if they haven’t tried it themselves.

Hi everyone, I used to brew fairly regularly and still have all my equipment including my kegs which I use for carbonated water right now. I have just been too busy raising kids and running a business the last few years that I just have not had the time to do it in a while. I now have a more...

So I am trying to make a starter for brewing Thursday but the yeast smack pack I got was about 90 days old so the viability from the brewers friend calculator is only 37% or 37 billion cells. Using the Brewers friend calculator I found that I could get a proper pitch for the 10 gallon batch if I...

Ok so it sounds like an English yeast may be the way to go. I used to use Nottingham pretty frequently but also kept the temps a little lower and it was usually pretty clean. So maybe I need to try a fruitier strain and bump the temps up. I am often hesitant to go above 70 because I've had some...

Hi, I am looking for a yeast with lots of estery fruit character but I'm not really a fan of beers with lots of phenol spice like flavors. I'm thinking of making a white ipa like beer similar but not exactly like chain breaker. I'd like to go with similar or more fruit character than chain...

Some good advice here already. If you want the simplest method possible without making any extra starters the yeast is probably still pretty healthy and active right after fermentation has completed in the primary (about 5-9 days). I don't normally do secondaries anymore but in this case you...

Yeah that is what I would do, it's not too late.

Keep in mind that fermentation produces heat so just insulating them with old sleeping bags might keep them at an appropriate temperature. Honestly 70F is a little warm, it may be fine but unless you have some reason to rush the beer and some esters are ok with you I would shoot more for 65-68...

42660.5 + 10 gallons = 42670.5 Brewed and am now drinking a 100ibu IRA using wild collected hops (most likely cluster) at a state park that used to be a hop farm. This rarely used hop that used to be almost exclusively the only one brewed with in the US is actually quite tasty as a flavoring hop.

Hi. I am heading to Austin, TX tomorrow for the weekend to go to a wedding. I was wondering if anyone could recommend some great Texas beers that are relatively easy to find in 22oz bottles that I should try while I am there. It needs to be bottled beer where I don't have to go to a specialty...

I made a bourbon cherry stout last October that turned out great. I soaked the oak chips in bourbon for two weeks. For the cherries i transferred the beer to a secondary and added the fruit, you could probably add it to the primary after a week and let it sit on the fruit another week or two if...

Hi, I have a small bag with about 4-5 lbs of two-row pale malt that is about 2-3 years old. I wouldn't want to use it as is because last time I used old malt it tasted overly malty and homebrewey. However, I was wondering if I could try to home roast it into something similar to chocolate malt...

Wyeast American Ale 1056, White Labs WLP001 California Ale and Safale US-05 are all commonly referred to as the Chico strain which is believed to be derived from Sierra Nevada brewing company. With wyeast and white labs there is usually a very close substitute if not the same exact strain of...

For those of you who are curious about this yeast, I used to brew with it when I worked for the Mendocino Brewing Company and had access to it for use in my homebrew. The Mendocino brewing company, originally called The Hopland Brewery was stared by the New Albion brewers and acquired the yeast...