Recent content by goswell

I had question regarding rehydrating dry yeast so I emailed the company (Fermentis in this case). Here is their response I have spoken with our R&D Director in the past about the necessity of rehydrating and we decided there really isn’t any need to. If you direct pitch the dry yeast...

I have a quirk in my brewing that has always bugged me so I thought I would see if anybody else has ever had this problem. My problem is my post boil gravity is always two points low from what it should be per my pre-boil gravity. I know my water measurments are spot on because I created my...

I tried searching the forum for this simply question but I wasn't able to find it. Does store bought pasteurized apple juice benefit from pectic enzyme? Is it as simple as if it's clear in the jug then there is no need for pectic enzyme?

This is a home homebrewed flanders with nothing pitched but a pack of Roeselare from Wyeast so it's got a bit of everything. It's about a year old and is quite sour. I also looked at a beer brewed with 1056 and while there is some yeast to be found, it really is amazing how little is in that...

I put my first sour under the microscope tonight and it blew my mind. I thought I would share the picture. There's no mistaking this for a clean beer, it's got loads of bugs.

Did you try to cool the re-hydrated yeast down to 51 before pitching or did you just pitch the warm slurry into the cool wort? I want to try 34/70 but haven't worked out how to re-hydrate and pitch.

My idea came from reading Clayton Cone's (of Lallemond) response on an old HBD post. We recommend that the rehydrated yeast be added to the wort within 30 minutes. We have built into each cell a large amount of glycogen and trehalose that give the yeast a burst of energy to kick off the growth...

I'm going to brew a simple pale ale tonight and I'm going to try something different. I use US05 and BRY-97 quite a bit and I've had great success with both. The problem I've struggled with is timing the water temp, rehydration time, and getting the yeast attemperated. Tonight I'm going to...

Sweet. I plan to bottle it later this summer so I'll leave it be for now.

I brewed my first sour about 14 months ago and up until now everything has been going really well. The beer was a standard grist for a Flanders and I pitched one pack of Wyeast Roeselare Blend only, since I was going for a nicely sour beer. After a month or so it developed a nice, nasty...

I'm currently using a 10 gallon cooler but it's old and getting warped.

I'm thinking of getting an aluminum stock pot to use as a mashtun. Does anybody do the same? How is heat retention? Where is the best deal?

I've used to both rectangle and round coolers. Both worked fine but the the round one is way easier to clean because it has no corners. I don't know that brand will matter as long as it can be fitted with a bulk head.

But open the valve slowly when you let it rip or you'll get a huge pile of grain in your kettle.

I used that yeast once myself. Same thing, the starter was very much like you described. I went ahead and made the beer anyway and it turned out ok but I will not use that yeast again.