Recent content by Heatwaves

I'm interested. I have Black Tuesday, Bois variants (Brandy, Rye, New Oak), BA Speedway Stout, Vietnamese Speedway, or Chocolate Rain. (For Chocolate Rain, I would request 2x MBCP). You can also look at my cellar under "Heatwaves" at ratebeer.com as well.

I was very surprised myself! And I only had it set for "medium" for five days. Looks like I have to buy a thermostat for it.

I recently bought a used mini-fridge to cold crash, but when I went to bottle the beer today it was frozen solid. It's a strawberry-rhubarb saison that had already undergone 6 weeks of primary and secondary fermentation, so the beer definitely is finished. The recipe called for five days of...

I just had the exact same issue. I bought some French Saison yeast and by the time it got here is was completely room temperature. I made a starter, but within 24 hours I didn't get the typical intense Krausening. The yeast was definitely multiplying as there was about 1/4 of yeast at the...

Thanks. I researched it a little more and it definitely seems like the lactic acid is intended for the sparge water. I've never had to lower the pH of my sparge water in the past, so I'm just going to remove that step.

This month's Zymurgy mag has an interesting article for a Strawberry Rhubarb Saison. However, the base wort mentions lactic acid as an ingredient without any quantity. I've never used lactic acid before, so how much would you use? It's also odd that it's in the "base wort" section. Isn't...

Can I skip the mash out step and just do a larger sparge? Reason being, my mash tun is a 5 gallon cooler, so it will not fit 14.00 of grain, 4 gallons for mash-in (16.4 quarts as instructed), and 2.75 gallons for mash-out (10.97 quarts). Sparge is listed through Beersmith at 1.89 gallons...

Thanks for the info, guys! @dnslater The room is not very cold. Fermenter temp says 72. Normally, I keep my carboys chilled lower, but the yeast strain for this belgian is up to 75 degrees.

Is it possible for a beer to carbonate while in a secondary? Mine appears to have. Here's the situation... I recently brewed a 1.080 Belgian Ale and fermented it in a 6.5 gallon glass carboy. After 3 1/2 weeks, the gravity dropped to 1.019, so I transferred it to a 5 gallon carboy. I made...

Bob, after helping me with this one and the IPA, I'm going to end up having to name a beer after you. :rockin: I figured that I was using too many grains in limited quantities, but I just didn't know which one(s) to scrap and which one(s) to increase. Many thanks.

Anyone? Since I'm more or less doing this from scratch for the first time, I just don't want to screw it up too bad.

I've revised my grain bill for this recipe, but now I think I'm overthinking it with too many grain varieties in such small amounts. I'm trying to get the bready, biscuity flavors to show through. Thoughts? Maple Slapjack! 6 lbs Maris Otter 1 lb Special Roast 12 oz Carawheat 8 oz Pale...

Thank Bob! This looks great! Quick question... are the post-boil hops directions simply cutting the boil and letting it sit for 30 min prior to using the wort chiller? Thanks again. Definitely be brewing up this one this month.:mug:

Houdini, I have the same kit and was planning on doing the same thing! I'm going to use 6 oz of cocoa nibs though. I'm actually not going to use the extract they provided with the kit and I'm steeping 2 pounds of morello cherries in 10 oz of rum. I'm going to add the nibs to that mix, add to...

Love to try your IPA Magic, Bob! *All-Grain, Partial-Mash, or Extract? All-Grain *Boil time? In minutes. 60 *Will you rack to secondary? Yes *Hop Pellets or Leaf? Either. *What is your start boil volume in gallons? Can do as much as 8 gallons *What is your end batch volume in gallons? 5.5...