Recent content by Belmont

I know I have a copy of how to brew somewhere. Need to look that up. Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

One more thing guys. It may not be a problem but I remember in the early days being surprised by timing and almost screwing things up because I didn't sanitize something before it was supposed to be used for example. Does anyone know of a step by step walk through including specific gear used to...

I live in Texas where the weather is very hot most of the year. Standing around a boiling pot for hours with an open flame is far from an ideal experience. I thought I remembered there being drawbacks to electric heating but I dont remember now. I wonder if it alters the wort in ways that direct...

Hey guys. I'm returning to brewing after a 3 year sabbatical. I lost just about all of my equipment over the moves and such so I'm starting from scratch. I won't be a beginning brewer and have used most advanced techniques and equipment. I'm looking to save space and more importantly make for...

Also, I don't think anyone ever answered your yeast question from earlier. I usually like an English yeast character in my high gravity beers and try to build up a big culture from a vial/pack of liquid yeast. It looks like your only options are dry yeast and that US-05 is possibly the best...

No the Carafa Special is a pretty mild grain relative to the chocolate and roasted barley that are at my LHBS. Again both of those are much higher in color than I see listed in most recipes. The roast there is over 700 I think and I've seen most be in the 500-600 range. The chocolate is over...

http://www.northernbrewer.com/default/catalogsearch/result/?q=carafa&x=0&y=0 http://morebeer.com/search?search=carafa&=Search http://www.williamsbrewing.com/search.cfm http://www.brewmasterswarehouse.com/search/carafa

They make a Carafa Special I, II, and III. All of which are sold at what is probably the largest online retailer. The same retailer does not sell the regular carafa. Looking at several other well known online stores that carry Carafa, they only carry one variety of Carafa and it is of the...

Indeed. I had heard that only the Carafa Specials were the dehusked. I guess I just hadn't seen any the shops that I go to carry the regular Carafa I assumed that was what was being used. You might check with your shop to see if this is or isn't the case.

Carafa is roasted but the husks are removed reducing the bitterness significantly. So they are typically used when you want to darken something but don't want as much of the roasted flavor. They do still have a roast flavor but lack the bitterness. They do better in a porter, doppelbock, or...

Well it's not really a stout without roasted barley in my mind. Wouldn't need the coffee as much if you have roasted barley but you can still add it just beware of too much bitterness.

I thought roasted barley wasn't an option at your brew shop. A general rule of thumb is to limit your amount of specialty malts by percentage of grist to 10-15% max. If you are looking for more complexity then go with lower volumes of more variety. The different colored crystal malts can add...

I might add some coffee then if you don't have roasted barley available. The Carafa III will get you a lot of color points with a small addition but the Carafa malts lack some of the bitterness of roasted barley. Don't remove the smoked malt because of my suggestion. If you want a really...

I highly sensitive to smoked malt so I can tell from looking at it that it wouldn't be my cup of tea. I'm not sure that its really a stout without something giving a roast flavor. I have had some stouts where the base malts were the darker munich/vienna and that can turn out great. I also...

I chill and whirlpool my wort and siphon mostly clear wort into the fermenter. If it's particularly cloudy looking I'll put a nylon bag over the autosiphon to filter further. I do use a hop bag because I don't want that hop material staying around long enough to leech grassy flavors into the...