Recent content by gaviga

MoreBeer has locations in CA and PA, so their shipping costs to the coasts will generally be less for heavier shipments. RiteBrew is in the Green Bay area so it's cheaper for those of us in the middle🙂

Interesting. I had thought differently.

CBC is not a wine yeast. It does not ferment maltose, thus it is used for bottling hg beers with residual fermentable maltose.

FYI, never use a high-gravity wine yeast for bottling unless you want bottle bombs! It'll dry your beer out and cause gushers. Use a bottling yeast like CBC-1. It only ferments bottling sugar so that you can control your carbonation. When I bottle my RISs, I just prime with corn sugar and let...

I had a similar experience when I was gone for a few months and my keezer died. My Corona clone tasted horrible after that. It was fine before.

I have used CBC yeast successfully. But I have also just used priming sugar with existing yeast in my RISs and barley wines (>11%) successfully, too. In fact it's all I do anymore. I bottle condition for at least 2 weeks before I lower temps. I generally cellar my big beers for at least a year...

IMHO, most generalizations based on sex are usually wrong. Best to ask, then offer options as I mentioned above. FWIW, our homebrew club's president is female. She's been the president since the early 1990s. And she's a damn good brewer!

I had the same dilemma 20+ years ago. I talked my wife into doing a "World Tour de Brew", i.e. trying several different varieties of beers one at a time. Firts up were the Hefeweizens. I got a 6-pack of mixed German Hefeweizens including Paulaner, etc. She loved them and never went further on...

Then you wouldn't have any idea what your water chemistry is. Best to start with RO and build.

My local water treatment (softening/RO) person installed my RO with a 9 gallon tank and he ran a second line right to my brewing room. I fill my system directly, no lifting water ever again.

Saisons are my go-to style for inexpensive and tasty beers. I can brew a 10 gallon batch for ~$25. That's 80 pints for around 35 cents a pint! And it's really delicious beer.

This is what I would recommend. The more you add into your transfer process, the more likely you will introduce oxygen into your beer and spoil it. Cold crash, then closed transfer into a keg with a floating dip tube. You'll get a clean beer that lasts a loooooong time and tastes like it should!

I hope someone replies. I aged some Old Foghorn that I bought for 8 years. It might have been the finest aged barleywine I have ever tasted. I want to brew it!

It's the 60 minute addition that does it. It seems high but it's only 3 gallons. I used 1 oz at 60 and 1 at 30 for my 10 gallon batch and it was plenty bitter. And my CTZ hops weren't as fresh. I will throttle back on my next batch or move the 30-minute hops to the whirlpool.

Any condenser recommendations? I have a similar setup to the OP and am considering adding a condenser, too. TIA