Recent content by Caine

BTW, I've just made this in a much simpler way and it has turned out very good I think! Basically did everything the same except mixed in 32oz of Grade B Maple Syrup directly into the primary fermenter along with the wort (I didn't boil it at all, but you could pasteurize it if you wanted)...

While I was pushing in the stopper to cap up a batch of brown ale into my secondary, I accidentally pushed the rubber stopper into the carboy. From a sanitation standpoint, would it be a problem to just leave it in the current carboy, or should I rack to a different one? A couple of data...

FYI, a month after bottling, this beer is -really- good! The maple flavor is not overpowering at all and adds a lot to the finish. It has a great creamy thick head and I would say good head retention with a perfect medium brown color. Medium bodied and sweet with chocolate and an obvious...

A friend recently gave me a flour mill and a few bags of grains and I'm trying to figure out what to do with them all. :) I have a few pounds of "Spelt Berries". This appears to be some sort of wheat. I have a malt-based wheat beer recipe I've been thinking about; can I add these as a...

Grains: 4oz. Chocolate Malt 4oz. Biscuit Malt 8oz. Dark Crystal Malt Fermentables: 3.3# Cooper's Light Malt Syrup 1# Munton's Amber Dry Malt Extract 0.5# Malto-Dextrin 1# Belgian Candi Sugar 37.5 oz. Maple Syrup Hops: 1 oz. Fuggles (60 Mins boiling) 1 oz. Fuggles (1 Mins finishing)...

Thanks! I'll check them out.

Is there some place for homebrewers to buy custom bottle caps like the big boys use? I'm thinking something that has a custom graphical design on it, etc. Any ideas?

So does this just mean I need to let it set in the secondary longer than normal? Should I rack again or can I just go straight to bottles from the secondary? Thanks!

When I racked my first brew, a maple brown ale, to the secondary on Sunday morning, I added in a mixture of about 37 ounces of maple syrup (that had been boiled with 2 cups of water). I think I may have inadvertently aerated the wort when I added the mixture; I just poured it right into the...

My little homemade wort chiller. I had about 50' of 3/8 tubing and decided to double the surface area (and halve the length) of the copper by splitting it into two coils. Splitter is just a $5 washing machine hose splitter and the joiner is just a $2 garden hose splitter. Got a deal at Home...

Here's my first label attempt for a maple brown ale.

My first label attempt. Made for a maple brown ale. The name was suggested for no particular reason by my young son, who has a game called "Martian Matter".

I have a wheat beer on deck that I am considering combining with some of our blackberry stores in the freezer. I'm wondering what the preferred/best method of sanitizing these are when I put them in the secondary fermenter. They have plenty of seeds and the like, so there is a de-seeding issue...

I'm thinking of mixing in some maple syrup into a brown ale during as I rack to a secondary. I am wondering if it will effect the alcohol content calculations. I'm guessing so, but not sure if it will be noticeable (I plan to add at least a quart of maple syrup). If it turns out that it...

Question: Do you also add any maple syrup as primer? If not, what do you use and how would you describe the intensity of the maple taste? Subtle? Noticeable? Intense? etc. Thanks!