Recent content by GarageBeerGarden

I was wondering the same thing. It's my understanding that dry hopping doesn't allow the alpha acids to fully isomerize with the beer, making them more volitile and therefore useless with extended aging. I might have misunderstood what I read about all that though, and might work differently in...

The first time I used chocolate was one of my first beers - an extract stout. I wanted a little subtle chocolate without being too sweet or powerful like Young's or something. I didn't know what to do, so I just bought a bar of bakers chocolate, broke it up, and chucked it into the BK near the...

An effective version of the extract method is to steam the nuts (or whatever) in a small saucepan, then add the nuts AND water to the fermenter. A few ounces of water won't really dillute a 5 gallon batch. This sanitizes the product and retains the flavor you're trying to extract (since it ends...

I don't know much about the difference in faucets and what you'd need to do with that, but as far as the fittings, Northern Brewer sells a little kit with all of the quick connect fitting you need to easily switch back and forth between the two (corny and sanke). I like to have the option to buy...

Quick oats is a good happy medium. With most things, the less processed something is, the more flavor it has. You can use steel cut raw oats, but they require a cereal mash and probably some low temp mash steps for better conversion and clarity. Depending on your setup, this is either no...

I don't use HERMS, so I'm not too familiar with those systems, but I've heard people suggest using rice hulls for every batch no matter what style. Makes sense to me. They won't contribute any flavor and could only help. They're cheap too, so it's no big expense to add it to the list. I'm...

Also, your technique can have an effect here. Don't over-sparge so that you'll avoid leaching out too many tannins. Also, try a no-sparge. That goes back to the attenuation thing. Less attenuation with a no-sparge, but big, round mouthfeel. And also using hops with a low cohumulone level will...

You still get the roast flavor, though albeit not as intense, but as one poster commented earlier, the idea is to avoid extracting the tannins and harsher flavors you get with prolonged exposure. When you dunk a tea bag into hot water, it still tastes like tea even if you remove it after only a...

I noticed you used quite a bit of wheat in your grain bill. Did you do a cereal or decoction mash to help with the wheat's conversion? I won't try to explain the process here, but I'm sure there are detailed threads on both of those techniques. Also, while most malt we use doen't require a...

Actually, I'm not trying to sound like a know-it-all, but yeast do not impart tannins. Tannins come from plant sources (like apple skin). Yeast can impart an off flavor of their own if left in contact with the cider (or beer, or whatever) too long. Tannins are more of a mouthfeel thing mostly...

Definately sounds like phenols to me. Earlier posters hit that on the head. Plastic-y, rubbery phenols are usually a product of yeast. Either a wild yeast strain (infection), or due to the yeast you used to brew. Some yeast strains produce more phenols than others, especially at higher...

Pretty much Google any homebrew topics and here you are. Glad I've found it though. Great to see such a big (online) community of like minded beer lovers and brewers! It's all about the community. Without each other, I'm sure we'd all just be making wierd alcoholic barley mush in our kitchens.