Recent content by chlehb

A friend asked me to brew him something Belgian for his 30th birthday party. I went with this recipe as I figure a Saison is what a lot of people think of when they think of a Belgian beer. It clocked in at 7.8% ABV which is pretty perfect, for me at least. I like my Saisons in the range of 8%...

I want to brew this tomorrow but I'm a bit nervous about huge bitter-hop charge. Brewersfriend is calculating over 200 IBUs! http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/410323/furry-penguin-iipa Can someone tell me it will be fine :)? Also, I switched Warrior for Columbus and the yeast...

So I guess I'm one of the only people who didn't have success with this brew (I'm not blaming the recipe!). Mine is 2 weeks in the bottle now and it just tastes like a weird mix between sweet, malty and Cascade from the dry-hop. There's a good beer hidden in there somewhere but with the off...

I don't think you'll have much trouble fermenting with most ale yeasts in your basement. Nottingham ale yeast: I'd at least try once before you look for alternatives.

I have something like this: So I'm not to worried about the seal. Also, I got a kind of pump thingy for it with which you can create pressure and pour with a tap handle. Haven't tried it yet but I hope it solves the sediment problem.

Ended up doing a generous dry-hop with Cascade pellets. Bottled on Saturday. Fingers crossed for a nice beer in a few weeks. I filled two 2L growlers and bottled the rest. Anyone have any experience with conditioning in growlers? Also, kegs arrived this weekend. Possibly the last time I...

Ok yeah I get that. Until now I was brewing solo in my kitchen though. My girlfriend isn't too keen to help every time I want to bottle a batch. Smaller batches are just less hassle that way, plus you can brew more often. Even 5g is a lot to drink, especially if a batch doesn't turn out as great...

Fair enough! Until now I was bottling so less was more. I don't want to ever have to bottle 10 gallons by hand. But I just ordered kegs and am in the process of upgrading to a dedicated brew room with my buddy so soon that should be a possibility :)

I know I'll prefer it, more hops is always better imo :). But I brew blonde ales mostly for my girlfriend and she's not huge on hops. But you have me convinced, this is getting a dry hop tonight. I need to get two 2 smaller carboys to split batches.

I'm going back and forth on whether I should dry-hop this with Cascade. Can anyone that has done both (no DH vs DH) on this beer share their thoughts?

I actually did FWH this beer. Getting to 85°C (185°F) for the whirlpool addition wouldn't have taken too long either, my immersion chiller is pretty fast. I'll have to read up on that DH article! edit: Interesting article! As this beer is low IBU and my hops were stored lose than ideally...

So here it is, 2 weeks in the bottle (sorry for the bad lighting): This guy pours a thick, creamy white head. The smell is amazing. Like a beery basket of fruit. Two friends received a bottle and each wrote me a text independently to the like of "holy **** the smell is amazing!". The first...

Eh, I'm not worried. I was about to say I didn't even have a beer while brewing, but I did :tank:

So today it was finally my turn to brew this beer. What a brew day! First I spilled grain all over my kitchen, overshot the mash temp, then my new induction plate quit on me while bringing the wort to a boil, then I mixed up the first Centennial addition and added Cascade instead, my immersion...

Bottled my batch this weekend. I must say I don't have high hopes for it after tasting the hydrometer. It's quite dry and bitter. However I always get this feeling when packaging and most of the time the beers turn out great after a week or two in the bottle. What's the deal with oat malt? I...