Recent content by captjack

I am thinking about brewing an AIH octoberfest / marzen brew kit. it recomends white labs820 octoberfest/marzen lager yeast. Do i or should i use a starter or could i pitch an extra vial of the lager yeast? I never did a starter before not sure what brand and how much DME to use. I was thinking...

I am goint to brew an scottish ale i am thinking about fermenting in my frig. What is the coldest i can ferment at? If i do a secondary how cold should that be ? thanks

So after the first week you don't have to keep the water bath at 60 degrees is that correct? thanks for your help.

it was syrup

The kit does not give an fg I guess I should have done an og before I toped the wort off to 5 gallons correct?

I am going to search the forum to learn about a starter I do have john palmers book and will read up onit. In general what is a starter and why do you use it?Would I use it in place of the yeast that I would buy with the kit? Thanks for your help.

following the instructions it never said anything about doing a yeast starter should a starter be done when you brew?

og temp about 70degrees fg temp 63 degrees firminting 2 weeks still have a little bit of bubbling in in air lock. if wort was not aerated enough could that lower abv ? After poring wort to carboy I shook it about one minute hope that was long enough to aerate it.

when fermentation is over you can still have a layer on top?

Yes I realized I had one and dumb me I sanitized it before reading all instructions on not to get it wet. now it doesn't work just ordered another one

is this a true formula abv=(1.05x(og-fg) /fg ) /0.79 my og was1.038 fg1.016 if so my abv is only 3% not much? I bought a kolsch extract kit with 4lbs german pilsner and 2lbs dme pitched wyeast 2565 one liquid pack. does the abv sound about right? instructions says og should be 1.042-44...

ave a question about the siphon tube that came with my brew kit .It has a siphon tube with a rubber sleave that fits over the neck of the carboy. There is another small tube on the sleave that I am supposed to blow into to start the flow.Wouden't my blowing possibly infect the brew? Seems the...

from what I read I thought you had to keep the temp to 65 degrees while fermenting figured I would keep temp of water around 60 degrees and brew would be around 65 degrees.i am doing a kolsch extract and pitched wyeast2565.

I am doing a swamp cooler for my fermentation. I am now 2 weeks out and been addind foroen water bottles to keep temp down water temp at 60 degrees.I still have bubbling in airlock and kreausen on top .Do I still hve to keep the water kool until fermentation is over? Will the kreausen leaves is...

I used a meat thermometer don't know how accurate for measuring cold. I had a bottle of water in the fridge and it read 40 degrees and I left the thermometer in frige for a while and it read about 36 degrees.Whith these findings do you think I can try the cold crash?If so how long shoul I crash...