Recent content by FireantBrewing

A friend of mine is growing cascade hops in up state NY, he is sending me about a pound to brew with. This is the second year of his crop and he does not have specs for alpha/beta yet... He has dried them and vacuum packed them. What is the best way for me to incorporate these into my beer...

I was going to make a Darwin joke here but decided against it... :)

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This is the beer that went to 1.002, doesn't look infected to me and tasted fine when we went to secondary. Kegging it today, we'll see how it is a few days... Thanks for all your input!!

What's everyone's thoughts on the new White Labs packaging? I used it for the first time the other day when creating yeast starters. At first I missed the vials but the new packaging actually works pretty well. The yeast inside doesn't seem to cake up like it did in the vials.

I will try that, what is the ambient temp of the room where your bags are?

It was an all grain recipe, mash temp was 152ish. I would love to ferment at a lower temp but all I have are Cooler Brewing bags that I swap frozen water bottles out of, tough to maintain the temps mentioned. The beer was very good,everyone that tried it loved it, so it wasn't infected. For...

I use BeerSmith and since I started crushing my own grain I am hitting the estimated OG at 80% efficiency. Where I am pretty far off is with the FG. My last batch the estimated FG was 1.010, but it measured at 1.002... is this something beersmith is not calculating correctly or am I just getting...

When chilling my wort in a 15 gallon kettle, I fill a cooler with water and ice and pump that through my wort chiller with a pond pump... Boiling to 70deg in about 15 minutes!!

Thanks for the constructive input BrewSavage. Glad you got a chuckle out of that, but I had read that and thought I'd give it a try. Isn't that how we learn?

Update: Just kegged this, the British Ale batch stayed at the same 1.011 FG (ABV 7.48%), the California Ale Ended up being 1.004 FG (ABV 8.4%), so we got a little more fermentation in the secondary from the California. Taste wise they are like totally different beers, The California batch is...

The OG of this beer was 1.068, I checked them both when I transferred them to secondaries, The California Ale came out at 1.008, the British ale at 1.011... This was after 7 days in the primary, they are both now being dry hopped. The British Ale carboy did have krausan, but at the end of seven...

I brewed an IPA, 10 gallons, and have 5 gallons in each of two 6.5 gallon carboys. In one I pitched WPL0001 California Ale, the other I pitched WLP0005 British Ale. The color of the beer in the British Ale carboy is much darker than the other, also all of the yeast is on the bottom, nothing on...

phook, I am plugging that recipe into Beersmith and I'm getting an OG of 1.033. How do you get to 1.068 with that grain bill? Thanks! Update: I was using the wrong equipment profile!! I brew 10 gallon batches and had that profile selected... duh!

Wow, a lot to think about!! Thank you all! One of the main reasons that I transfer to secondaries is to free up my 6.5 gallon carboys so I can brew more (more beer sounds like a good reason!). Also as you all know there are very strong opinions on both sides of this argument, and as a new...