Recent content by cobrem

Short answer - yes, discard. I can't imagine that you would be happy with the end result. The grains, especially if crushed, will probably be rancid. The lme probably wouldn't fare much better. I recommend starting with fresh ingredients.

Could be a bug got into your keg - I recall reading that pedio can cause that flavor as well. Is getting it worse as time goes on? It sounds like you are handling the yeast the right way - not sure what else it could be.

Yep. It fits the BJCP guidelines for OG. http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Beer.pdf

Autolysis should not be a concern for small batches for at least a month. Let it ride another week. If it starts to clear up, and airlock activity stops, that's a good indication (although not absolute), if you are not willing to test with a hydrometer.

No pellicle or lacing. Hopefully the harshness is yeast bite, and all is well. Maybe it's a wild yeast. Time will tell. Thanks for the encouragement! Good to know what Windsor does.

I think you are right. But it seems to be happening at the bottling stage. The de-carbed sample had a medicinal edge that wasn't there in the prebottled flat beer. Time for new plastic.

Ok. Decarbed and it came out to 1.014. Could be a drop from continued fermentation (or infection), or maybe I decarbed better this time around. The foam seemed to be a bit better, so I'll chug along and vent away. Taste was a bit sharp, but not unexpected for an overcarbed, yeasty beer. Time...

I'll check one again tonight and post. De-carbed the first time. I think one of the complicating factors is that they are all in bombers, so a lot more liquid volume holding onto the gas in comparison to the headspace.

Yep. In the fridge for at least 24 hours in each instance.

A month and a half or so ago, I brewed John Palmer's Elevenses (AG from NB), using Windsor dry ale yeast. After two weeks, it was reading about 1.020ish, and a follow up reading a week later was the same. (Seemed kinda high - but Windsor is a low attenuator). Fermented at mid 60s, ramping up to...

Never done it with beer, but I did carbonate some kvass using old soda bottles, with regular caps. Seems to have worked for a lower carb level.

2 gals in a 5 gal fermenter should be fine - for primary (less so for secondary/conditioning). Headspace for primary will get filled with co2 as part of fermentation and will blanket the beer. If you move to secondary, you lose that... And the least amount of headspace possible is desirable.

I do straight to bottle on my 1 gal batches as well. Autosiphon into bottles, and carb tabs. Not an issue if you keep off the bottom.

I'm not sure the molasses in the Brown sugar will turn out well for a hefe. Never done it, but I can't see that flavor blending well with the banana/clove phenolics. Plain ol' table sugar or corn sugar will be the most flavor neutral which should let the yeast flavors shine.

For what it's worth, I recently heard an archived 'can you brew it' podcast which described the mash temp for Lagunitas beers somewhere around 160. You're probably fine.