Recent content by iamfoamy

As a general rule of thumb, I make sure I have one beer for every inch of snow that is forecast. This storm conveniently made me purchase an even case.

We are all so uniquely different, so there is no way to answer how much is too much. I'm 47, and I've probably drank somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 bottles of beer. I'm in good shape, I exercise every day, and I eat a well-balanced diet. I'm of Irish descent, so that probably helps...

Electric turkey fryer.

I made a half-batch my first time too. I used a German Hefeweizen kit from Morebeer, and the dried malt extract was packaged in two equal bags. I didn't have to mess with splitting it.

Of course I can't remember. That was about 40,000 beers ago.

I recently finished my first batch of homebrew, and I used a better bottle (with spigot) for fermentation, and I also bottled from it. For priming, I used Coopers carbonation drops (one per bottle). They cost about 10 cents per bottle. More expensive than corn sugar, more of a...

I recently listened to the August 7 2008 podcast on basic brewing radio, and they had a guy who tested three aeration methods (shaking, pumping air, pumping air with aeration stone). Shaking the carboy for 5 minutes was the most effective. The website also has a paper that he prepared.

Here is a picture of bottles being warmed in a cooler using a soil heating cable. I hope I attached it correctly.

I experimented with a 6-foot long soil heating cable (Gro Quick) buried in a layer of sand inside a 10" x 20" cooler. I placed 25 bottles upright on the sand and I've found that it is able to keep the bottles in the 70 to 74-degree range when my basement is 60-degrees. It has a built-in...

I fermented my first batch of beer in a better bottle equipped with a spigot. My intent was to skip the bottling bucket, and bottle from the spigot on the carboy. When I went to attach the bottle filler, I noticed that I had installed the spigot plunger upside down. So, I had to lay the...

I have a similar problem with conditioning temperature in my basement, so I am thinking of using a technique that gardeners use to raise the temperature of their indoor seedlings. You can use "soil heating cable". Google it and you'll see that it comes in different lengths, and has a...

My first homebrew is now 10 days old. It is a hefeweizen brewed from extract. The O.G. was 1.050 and the F.G. today is 1.011. The temperature in my basement is 62 to 65 degrees, which was good for fermentation. I will bottle it this weekend. I understand that it is best to store the...

I brewed my first beer last week (hefeweizen), and I plan to keep it in the primary for 3 weeks as suggested. Should I wait until day 20 to check the FG, or should I check it at day 10?

I can attach the bottle filler directly to a spigot on a bucket, but the better bottle spigot is a little bit smaller. I can attach a 1/2" I.D. tube to the spigot, but that is too big for the bottle filler (3/8").

I recently bought a better bottle with a spigot, and I want to attach my 3/8" bottle filler to it. The spigot seems a little too small to accept the bottle filler. Has anyone else run into this problem?