Recent content by HoodedCrow

All of the prizes look sweet. Count me in!

Comments on this recipe, then advice going forward. First, there seems to be no need to boiling the cinnamon and nutmeg, they should be fine just added to the secondary. All the nice smells of cinnamon and nutmeg you will smell throughout the house as you boil them will NOT end up in your...

Belgian Specialty Ale - All-Grain Recipe Kit

I am a huge fan of Nottingham yeast. I have used it for about 40 brews, and I love it. It is generally good to about 14% ABV, and I have never gotten close to that. Your ABV should be about 7%, so you should be pretty safe here. I would think you are fine to bottle as is. If you are nervous...

Measure your pot carefully, and if it fits in the sink, it is a no brainer. I would like it better if it had a hose, but I generally love stainless. Easier to keep clean and sanitize if needed. I am pretending to not be jealous.

There is a lot of hating on Secondary ferment here. I agree that for a simple recipe, it adds nothing. For clarity, I use Irish Moss to aid in clarification, and prefer Nottingham yeast which clarifies beautifully. By the time I go to get it off the yeast, I generally rack into a bottling bucket...

It is generally good to get the cider (like everything else) off the yeast bed (lee or trub) if you are not bottling immediately. I find that with my ciders, aging in secondary gives a smoother flavor and helps clarify the cider a bit more, if you care about that kind of thing.

Those look like Belgian 750ml bottles. I use them quite a bit, and you can get the proper cork and wire cages (lust like champagne corks) from most LHBS. This gets expensive though, since it requires a special floor corker ($100-200 retail). These bottles are very strong and can handle a great...

I have made a couple of 5 gallon batches of Cyser that have gotten great reviews. Like everything you brew, ingredients are everything. When I make anything based on apples (Graff, Cider, Cyser), I start with fresh pressed cider from a local orchard. Add a bit of pectic enzyme and you get a...

If you add any significant amount of honey, you end up making a Cyser, which can be incredibly good, but needs to age for a year or more to be really delicious. I have made quite a bit of it, but it is not cider. I have made several ciders (7 or 8), and the one I least enjoyed had sugar in it...

The price you are paying for grain seems very high to me. When I first started doing all-grain brewing, my cost dropped by about 40% per 5-gallon batch. The LHBS that I go to generally charges $1.50 to $2.25 per lb. Rebel Brewer online charges a bit less, but you have a little shipping cost to...

I'm sure I could put this to use!

What a great set of prizes. Count me in! And thanks to all the vendors who have so generously contributed prizes!

You credit the good head to the flaked barley, but you don't list flaked barley in the recipe. I am a big fan of flaked barley. I brew with semi-hard water, and add .5# flaked barley and .5# carapils to every beer I brew. Can you tell me how much you used here?

I am an all-grain brewer, and end up with a lot of spent grains. We have a dozen chickens who love the spent grains. While my Wort is boiling, I pack the spent grains into gallon size ziploc bags and put them in my beer fridge. The can keep for weeks there. I have a set of about 5 bags that I...