Recent content by franknbrews

Ah, the seal, I never thought of that! Do you think it's okay to continue using bucket with weak seal?

This has never happened to me before so thought I would share for the beginners. I made a brown ale in a 5 gallon bucket, 1.050 original gravity. I woke up the next morning, less than 8 hours after pitching the rehydrated Nottingham dry yeast and there was nothing happening in the airlock...

I cracked another sour porter today and I'm not impressed. I think they are getting worse, more vinegary. I've officially decided that I'd rather spare my bottling equipment than this beer. My plan is to siphon (with my already contaminated siphon) some of the bourbon beer into a handful of 22oz...

My closet is the fermenter area and the storage area, it is pretty much always 70 degrees even on the coldest days. Good call about holding off on the bottling, the secondary is full to the neck, but there is plenty of bubble action still going so I might as well let that play out for a while.

Flat ones were 1.080 and 1.060 respectively and both stabilized nicely in the 1.01x range, both were in primary for around a month and the 1.080 in the secondary for two-three weeks in addition. They've both been in the bottles for two months or longer.

Now that I think about it, I am so adamant about chilling that I get the beer down to 70 and then the cold top off water I use (this winter) is pretty damn cold. I pitch the yeast right away and maybe I'm pitching it too cold? The temps obviously stabilize after a day in the 60-70 range, if not...

These beers ranged from 1.060 to 1.092, in all cases I rehydrated s-05 (two packets) and fermented in the 65 degree range, plus or minus. I never let me ferms get over 70 or below 60, but other than that it's not an exact science in my closet.

Ugh, now I'm going to go ahead and ruin yet another perfectly good bottling bucket with my bourbon stout tonight. I can't bring myself to dump it. I'm hoping for a beer miracle. I tasted the porter and the brown ale today and at the very least, they aren't getting worse.

So far, the beers aren't getting worse, nor better, but thanks for the info! I don't think oxidation is an issue and I usually keep my beers in the primary for 3-4 weeks, 4 weeks always for higher gravity beers. What kills me is that my process has worked for years, this sour issue is brand new...

Yes, this is what's driving me crazy. No carbonation, no real pellicle to speak of (have a look at the pics on page one), and inappropriate color. Maybe the Extract itself is to blame? I used the same briess DME for all three beers. The flavor is like the beer should taste (hops and nuttiness...

No ball valve. Just a big pot. I boil up corn sugar for priming, it usually works great for the beers that don't accidentally turn sour. I don't know why this infection turns black beers brown and also is impossible to carbonate, but that's how it works. I couldn't begin to recount the...

My secondary beers always turn out fine, regardless of headspace, but the kicker is that the very first sour beer (the Porter) didn't even use a secondary. Still, I'll skip the secondary for the next beer because why take another risk. The actual source of the problem is not the secondary, though.

My other dilmena. The bourbon stout is ready to bottle. It is pretty tasty for an accidental sour. So I have to choose between sacrificing all of that new bottling equipment to bottle this beer, or dump the beer. The plastic stuff is close to $60 in value I believe. What would you do - bottle...

Oh, that krausen that you see in the pics hangs around for nearly 3 and a half weeks. Not a very quick fermentation at all. I should probably get it up to 68, my cooler can get pretty low, as low as 60 when I'm chilling it with the frozen water bottles.

I'm using city tap water. I'll will definitely not put tap water directly into the beer from now on. All of the other suggestions are not a concern - my last beer was brewed with entirely new equipment, disassembled, soaked in start san, and my yeast rehydration (s-05) and my temperature control...