Recent content by Haji

If you are doing extract brews with steeping grains, then you will want to add any extract after your initial 30 min steep. Longer boils will darken the color of the wort. I usually use LME and add it all at once, Would do the same with DME. As long as you're not doing an extended boil, you...

Avinnatore and a bottling tree. Made bottling much easier.

Whelp, most of it depends on the type of LME and DME used. If its just regular pilsen light or golden light from briess than that sounds about right. None of the grains mentioned have a ton of unfermentable sugar. :mug:

That would definitely help. FG is more of a result of unfermentable sugar in the original recipie. Lots of Crystal, Chocolate, and roasted malts in relation to you base malts would definitely give you a higher FG. Since you said it blew off the airlock, it must have been over 1.070 SG right?

Depends on the time period. The OP didn't have any spices in the recipie that I could see qualifying as gruit. Even the Scots were using heather tips during pre-hop stages of brewing. Something from england at the pre-hop stage would have had at least some sort of herbal componet.

Sounds reasonable to me.

Mind if I ask what your usual batch is?

I know glass is heavy. I've cursed them more than one time as I hauled them down to the basement. But, a lot of that can be mitigated by using a handle or a brew hauler. What it really boils down to is oxygen infiltration. If you have a standard ale pail with no rubber gasket (like me and...

I personally use a 5 gallon glass carboy for secondary. Using a carboy that is as close as possible to your batch size in secondary minimizes surface area exposed to possible oxidation. Ideally, you shouldn't have any signs of vigorous fermentation in secondary. The bulk of that should have...

+1 to 3pegBrew Always have your initial SG down. You can tell a lot from it. Tend to agree that primary is probably done, but you wont be able to confirm without a hydrometer reading.

Hi, Depends on a couple different factors. If secondary was more than a few months then might have to pitch new yeast. Usually this is a problem with a super long extended secondary fermentation, not secondary fermentation. Secondary ferementation over a few months may cause your yeast to...

Looks like hops and trub. Did you dry hop?

How long was it in secondary?

You might want to consider picking up a new bucket. Wild yeast and bacteria are notoriously hard to kill off once they've established themselves in a fermenter. Any subsequent batches you might brew could be contaminated.

Ok, so there are a lot of variables here. 1) How long was your boil? Long boils could lead to kettle carmalization and unfermentable sugars. Also, if your wort wasn't being stirred thoroughly when you added it that could also lead to the same problem. 2) like BPal75 said, you may have...