Recent content by biertag

I had bought a kit recipe over a year ago and never brewed it. So since then my wyeast slap pack has been in the fridge. Finally decided to give the recipe a go to see what happens. As usual...most of the slap packs I get don't really swell, so nothing new on that front. Almost 3 weeks...

And old neighbor gave me some of his homebrew several years back and within a few months I already had all the basic equipment to brew. A few years later I built a kegerator. No hobby is cheap, but it sure is fun.

Does that affect the carbonation of the beer in the keg that you take off the gas?

get a magnet and test it.

Well I went to the farmers market today and grabbed a few fresh pineapples. Cut into them this afternoon to see what I got and they are ripe and ready to go. They are really sweet. Have it all ready in a ziplock for tomorrows rack to secondary for fruit and dry hops. Decided to cube them...

I'm adding 4 pounds of fresh pineapple to my pale ale in secondary. My question is should I wait for the pineapples to become ripe before adding? Similar to waiting for them to be ripe before eating. Secondly I will be cutting the pineapple into chunks and steeping to pasteurize. I'm...

Well I checked the gravity today and it's at 1.012. The nasty taste I had after brewing is gone and now has a pleasurable hop bite. It must not have mixed well with my top off water before I took a gravity reading and initial taste.

Better to keep them in the freezer if you know you're not going to use them in a while

I'm using a Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardens. I may take a gravity reading this weekend to see where I stand.

Shouldn't you have your secondary in a 5 gallon carboy and filled to the neck? Once you have the brew up to the neck of the carboy the surface area for contamination is smaller.

Thanks...yes. Patience is key. It's been a few years since I brewed so feels like I'm checking the carboy more often than usual.

I'm fermenting an ale at about 70 F and my yeast was up and running the next morning after brewing. My yeast slap pack was only a month old so it was very active the next morning. I know you can't always determine the completion of the fermentation based on the bubbles in the airlock...but I...

The heavy seas line is good. I lived in Baltimore for several years and was always picking up a six pack. Cannon Hop 3 was my favorite.

Thanks all for the responses.

I might be the stirring then. I only aerated the carboy after adding the wort and didn't aerate after adding the top-up water. Let me go give a good shake. Hopefully that helps.