Recent content by becksbolero2

So I've been doing starch conversion tests at the end of all my mashes. I read that if the mash is not complete then it will turn black/purple. For my past three batches at the end of the 60 min the tests have all turned red. Even if I let it mash longer it seems to stay the same color. Can...

so ive been brewing beer for a year now and am curious to try a batch of mead. I would like to make a small batch to start out with because A, I've never had it before and am not sure how i will like it. B honey seems like its crazy expensive. I was thinking of boiling on the stove and...

i'm here in seattle also, what do you do to soften the water ?

I think two quarts is certainly on the higher end of what most people do. I recently bumped mine up from 1.10 quarts/pound to 1.30,

so i'm going to be switching from my rectangular coleman cooler to the circular rubbermaid cooler. I feel like I'm loosing to much heat out of the coleman. I can see the steam seeping out from underneath the lid while mashing. I was wondering if I should go with the 5 or 10 gallon cooler...

so I've been kegging my last 6 or 7 batches but only having three kegs and with the speed that me and my girlfriend and our friends go through them they are usually not lasting much more than 2 or 3 weeks after they are carbed I know some beers like heffes are ready to be consumed early. and...

The Hop Vine in capitol hill has a great local beer selection and amazing pizza The Dray is a soccer bar that has some great beer big time brewery has a huge amount of their own beers on tap (try the trombipulator) and also has amazing pizza The fiddler is in wedgewood has great beers...

how long does it take you to batch sparge ? do you let it sit after each sparge ?

what ? noone likes maritime here ?

Maritime Brewery is great their tap room is right next door at the Jolly Roger, try their night watch. but yeah, naked city has some great beers on tap though

The Band, and Townes Van Zandt

sea dog brewery, in south portland great blueberry beer (which you can also get at trader joes)

so i've been reading in "the joy of homebrewing" and some other books about mashing in stages. Raising the temps in stages to extract certain things from the grains. Do many of you do this ? How do you go about it? can someone give me an example of how their mash procedure looks using this...

dont do anything untill fermentation is complete check the gravity every couple of days untill it stops dropping, and then rack to secondary. Normally I would say that a secondary is pointless, but you may have stressed out your yeast so it may be a good idea to get it into a new carboy, and...

so this just got kegged and i'm just waiting for it clear a bit, so far it tates really good, but was yours really red ? mine turned out (even though it's not cleared yet) a light brown like an apple cider.