Recent content by gregjohnston

I bottled a bucket of stout slush the other week. Turned out great. Cold winter here in Boston...

Cambridge Brewing Company has great beer and great food. It's hopping on weekend nights though, be ready to wait a little. Hope you like snow!

You're at the very high end of the yeast's range (68-70 F) assuming 70 is your ambient temp, the beer will be about 4 F higher because the yeast give off heat. Other than that -- don't worry. It's way too soon to be able to tell. I've had many beers that taste horrible at five days turn out...

Let's say you bottled in the Sodastream bottle without using the machine to carbonate it, and let it bottle condition. That would work fine, right? Do they hold carbonation well?

I just made a (no real fruit) passionfruit cream ale with 1oz Simcoe in a 3 gallon batch at flameout. You get good fruit aroma.

Agreed about using the Maris Otter extract. Maris Otter and East Kent Goldings (say 1 oz at 60, .5 oz at 15, .5 oz at flameout) with any English ale yeast will be great.

I don't see you mentioning here the important step of removing the bag of speciality grains from the pot. This should happen after 30 minutes and before you bring the pot to the boil. If you're doing that, great. Try a one or two gallon batch using bottled spring water (not distilled). If you...

ABV is entirely a function of how much of the sugar has been eaten by the yeast. The more it attenuates relative to a particular OG, the higher the ABV. 1.010 is a pretty normal final gravity, though, and shouldn't taste super-sweet. Are you sure that's accurate?

I've had success making a tea and adding it at bottling. This was actually to adjust for a distinct lack of spice in a recipe that called for an addition at flameout.

So, my limiting factor is my small kettle: about four gallons. Ended up post-boil with 3 gallons (a lot of hop sludge, maybe I was over cautious with it to be honest) at 1.054. I topped it off with a gallon to make a four-gallon batch at 1.040. We'll see how it turns out, but I'm pretty happy...

I'm just getting started on my fourth brew, my first all-grain. Doing a sort of modified maxi-BIAB, since I have a few four-gallon vessels. I'm sure my efficiency will be low and my boil will only be partial, but it will be beer. The sheer joy of a pot full to the brim with a bag full of...

Cambridge Brewing Company has the best pumpkin I've ever had, and everything else they do is too notch. I don't know if they have a lot of stuff in bottles though... I've only gotten it on tap or taken growlers home.

I'd recommend trying a recipe in a specifically low-gravity, low-alcohol style: I like English Milds and Southern English Brown Ales. These are often basically just 4 pounds of DME, up to a pound of crystal malts, and some chocolate malt or roasted barley for color and a bit of roastiness...

Just by way of an update: this beer is pretty good for what it is. But I've found out to my chagrin that this is WAY too much brown malt for my taste buds. The brown malt toastiness is the main flavor. I'd probably double the crystal malt and quarter the brown malt (or drop it entirely) next...

Yes! (This is good for sanitation, and good for mixing the dissolved maple sugar throughout the batch.)