Recent content by Charbucks

I'll second the "don't be afraid to really shake it up" advice. I followed the directions for my first kit to a T, and was surprised to find my first bottle was slightly fizzy (although it's improving with age). Maybe it's just because I'm a wussy little girl, but 2 minutes of hard...

Any chance the growler had been formerly occupied by some beer? Maybe that's not quite wild yeast you've got in there (although beer-yeast-wine might be a bit odd).

Alright, 2 weeks later (3 weeks after bottling) I cracked another bottle just for fun, and the fizziness is *significantly* reduced. It also tastes much better :) Either way, my next batch is going to get a serious degassing, but it's nice to know that the whole thing isn't ruined.

Thanks for the reply! Glad to hear it's not *entirely* ruined - I think decanting before drinking is a much easier solution than rebottling. I'll just chalk this one up to "experience" and hopefully manage to degas better next time.

I decided to make wine on a whim, and picked up what is probably a pretty low-quality wine kit on the recommendation of the guy in the shop:Vintners Reserve Valpolicella (a "28-day" kit). On July 15th, I carefully followed the instructions on the box, although I did aerate in the primary for a...

Thanks for the links and help guys, I forgot about using google to search. Looks like dry ice carbonation is something generally not recommended... at all...

I apologize if this has already been discussed, but I can't search for dry ice on the forum because both words are too short, and who says "frozen CO2"? In any case, has anyone done any experimentation with using dry ice for carbonation? I'm sure it'd be possible, but it'd be nice to know if...

That's a good idea, I have read that as well. Thanks!

I'm looking to try my quasi-first batch of all grain, and I've got a bunch of raw organic wheat from my roommate's farm as well as some Canada malting 2-row ("minimum D.P. 125"). Would I be insane to try 40% unmalted wheat? I'm thinking of doing a cereal mash with the wheat and a bit of the...

Maybe he's British? ;) I agree, that's an annoying case. Even worse is when you are riding towards them, they clearly see you, and just decide to ignore you, especially when there's 2 feet of snow piled up next to the walkway and of course, it's easy to just bike through the snow...

I'll call it biomedical... technically "biological engineering", but I'm in the biomedical stream (the other one is bioprocessing, much more relevant to beermaking but overall kind of boring to me). The school is the University of Guelph, better known for its agricultural types, but overall not...

Oh, and xjiefx: Blanche de Chambly is awesome. Also good, which I just found for the first time this weekend, is the Belgian Style Wit from Mill St. Brewery in Toronto. I did a little side-by-side with Blanche de Chambly last night, and the Wit is more citrusy and overall a little stronger...

Is it presumptuous of me to fill this out after only a few posts on the forum? Maybe. But here goes. 1. How old are you? 22 next Tuesday! 2. Marital status Definitely not married. 3. Do you have kids? I sure hope not. 4. Where do you live? Onterrible 5. What is your occupation? Engineering...

One semester left 'till I'm a full-fledged engineer, currently doing image analysis and biomechanical modeling in a research lab.

I agree. The major problem is not the age, but the outlook on alcohol. I have been drinking since I was 15-16, and since I live in Ontario, I've been going to bars since I was 19. My biggest evening of stupid, blind, forgetful drinking was when I was 21. That had nothing to do with how old I...