Recent content by EVILsteve

Your Scooby is fine. That's how you can store it, in a jar with enough starter juice to keep it moist and enough to start the next batch. In the cupboard is fine too or fridge for extended periods. Just gets a bit more sour and vinegary after a while. Personally I'd boil more than 2 cups to...

You could try the skeeter pee recipe. Not a beer but pretty good and super cheap. Seems to be the only thing I brew that my friends will regularily guzzle down by the carboy. Lemon itself can be very hard to ferment, maybe it's the acid content or lack of nutrients. That skeeter pee I'd...

Dont fear the foam. Once you pitch the yeast in that nice juicy wort that yeast is going to take over out of control kill off most or all of the bacteria that could have entered it in this stage. If youd pitched the yeast at the wrong temps and it took a while to get going that could become...

7.6 and a target of 8.5 for a new brewer isnt bad at all. There's hundreds of factors that can account for the difference, One big one is temperature. Without adjusting for temps or taking a reading at precisely the same temperatures can make up for that difference. You could very well be at...

I soak and the stubborn ones go into the dishwasher. 60% of the time it works evertime.

Ale yeast is going to foam and blow off enough that I wouldn't bother with fermenting in the smaller vessel. regardless of yeast wine or ale personally I would add slightly more than the 96oz to the one gallon leaving some head space and let it do its thing without risking blow off. Then swap to...

Bacterial infection causing bottle bombs. Thats the first Ive ever heard of that or table sugar causing exploding bottles. I can definetely imagine thats possible with an infected brew. All my sugars are added post boil or just enough heat to make it dissolve. not once have I boiled it longer...

Black wych breweries hobbgoblin was my favourite for years. Their raspberry fruit beer thing is completely nasty beyond words.

Ive had a few prickly pears and I can attest to them being relatively mild flavour. What little they have bitter sweet and sour comes to mind. Id be cautious using this as the main fermentible leaving the drier bitter sour finish. You might be best using this more as an F-pac post or late...

Spenda is non fermentable and would work well. Most ale yeast will finish around 1.015 with about 5%. It wouldn't take much Splenda to sweeten to taste from there. I'm fairly certain you can't use the hydrometer to measure to a certain FG with splenda, it's all to taste. You may find that...

Im not familiar witht Redds wicked apple but theres lot of cider threads on here especially related to deviations of ed worts apfelwien and strong bow that could probably set your on you way. From reading your post I get the impression your thinking about using 1 gallon shiner jugs for...

get a whole bunch of 1 gallon growlers. Experiment with one gallon at a time. My first year of experimenting I probably consumed about 100+ liters of beer I wish Id never brewed. You'll make mistakes just finding brewing techniques, recipes or even the style that fits your palate most. Brew...

my brother wanted to learn to brew. Over a few dozen pints I explained some concepts and walked him throught he process. With twinkle in the eye and hops on breath we where ready. My brother with his paint by numbers kit brew and me with my simple extract recipe I whipped up just for the...

super tenere and bmw where exactly what I was thinking of. Ive been planning a trip through central america over the next winter and was planning on taking a flathead Harley but the ADV rider group had got me thinking about a bike more suited to the purpose. Id always grouped the Adventure...

One of the benefits of a bucket over carboy is the size. If you use the carboy and fill it too far your going to loose some from blow off when it foams over. Then your going to have a larger air to liquid surface when it settles and your trying not to get oxygen into the brew. One advantage...