Recent content by CortexBomb

You can use a pretty significant amount of sugar without any problems. Belgian beers are one example of a style that uses a hell of a lot of sugar (i.e.: up to 30%) (read Brew Like a Monk, from the yeast's perspective the candy sugar that they usually use is digested identically to standard...

Topic is pretty much contained in the header. I live in an apartment, using ye olde plastic tub with ice-filled 2 litre bottles I can get my fermentation temperatures down into the high 50s this time of year, and I have access to a basement for lagering, but not at really icy cold temps. I'm...

Yes, exactly. I basically hold the bag as long as I can per the original post (which varies based on how many pounds of wet grain it contains ;) ) and then set it in the colander over the steel bowl to let it drip drain while the wort is going to a boil. I don't ever put grain into the boil...

One really easy way to maximize this is to take the grain bag after the sparge and to set it in a colander nested into a slightly smaller steel mixing bowl while the wort is getting back up to a boil. During the brewing process I periodically empty the bowl into the boil and I get back a lot of...

Easiest way to tinker with this stuff for free is Hopville. http://hopville.com/ Sign up for a free account and use their beer calculus tool to check and see gravity, IBUs and all of the other pertinent info. In general, if you're getting good mashes, you can use about 5-7 pounds of...

Has anyone used this to try and seriously sour a Saison before? I ask because I like sour beers but I really don't have the space for a second set of equipment right now. I've been intending to brew a low gravity, traditional Saison (3.5% or so) and I like the idea of using acidulated malt to...

One other thing you should be aware of: The sugar being added to the boil has a second effect: it thins the body of the beer because it is easier for the yeast to break down. Even once the beer is done, it is going to have a much thicker body than a normal Belgian because of that.

FWIW I got out of pure extract brewing in extremely short order, but I've stayed on partial mash because of the space of my home. I'm not nervous about my ability to do all-grain, and the time thing wouldn't be significant either, rather, it's a function of not having space for the extra...

Sediment swirling in the bottle can be fixed by one thing: putting the beer in the fridge and letting it sit for 2 days minimum. Depending on how flocculant your yeast are, 2 days might form a tight ring, or it might still leave some in suspension. Cold storage is the only way to really compact...

How is the hop aroma? I ask this because a lot of people's flavour perception comes from their sense of smell. If you aren't getting a good hop aroma, you might not get the full IPA effect that you're expecting. If you're not getting enough aroma, the first thing I'd ask is are you cooling the...

The main reason why glass is used as a standard secondary to me has less to do with aesthetics or any of that junk, it has a lot more to do with concerns about plastic's porousness to oxygen. On a short, month or two timeline, that won't matter. For long secondaries, it will. I don't think most...

Definitely looks like surface oils from the hops to me, nothing to worry about.

If you're using the vodka zest method then you can add it to the secondary, late in the primary (after a couple of weeks) or during bottling, it doesn't really matter as long as you've given the zest enough time to soak in the vodka (i.e.: 2 weeks or so is what I've done). It's not entirely...

I do partial mashes on my stove, and I usually have about 4 gallons boiling after the mashing, which comfortably fits into my 7.5 gallon pot. If you're thinking about stepping up to PM somewhere down the line (not recommended at first, but it doesn't take much extra work and you have more...

If you need better hop utilization it's much easier to just do late extract additions. I'm not saying full boils aren't ideal, but there are a lot of reasons why it is a PITA to do so in an apartment setting. And yes, agreed, getting the wort back down to pitching temperature is just one more of...