Recent content by jlaureanti

For the record I'm a brewer at a local brewery. I have a degree in biochemistry and molecular biology. I'm not saying I know everything or that what you are saying is wrong. I was merely disagreeing with you. I'm glad you all have your opinions but none of you are 100% right in your arguments...

I wasn't intending to be rude, I was trying to correct a statement that wasn't entirely true. So I shouldn't have said not true at all. My apologies. Refractometers are way easier and you waste less beer. You do realize that this isn't going to give an exact correlation to your beer. I...

Not true at all. FG is based upon the health of the yeast and the size of the pitch. By simply differing the OG of your starter you are differing the quantity of yeast pitched. Aeration is also an important factor. By adjusting the aeration levels you are adjusting the viability of your yeast...

Gravity readings, my friends, gravity readings!!! Then and only then will your beer be done. On top of that, you should crash cool before you rack. If you are trying to hit 1.016 and you rack and 1.016 with out crashing, there will stil be residual yeast in there and they will reduce your...

I just brewed a porter with the same yeast and it is tasty... I always crash cool before transfering. I decide to crash cool when the fermentation has gone as far as I want it to go. If you pitched a healthy quantity of yeast you may be able to over ferment your beer and it will end up way too...

I would just like to say that I live in Arizona and it is crazy to me that someone would have to build a fermentation warmer! I pay an extra $40.00 a month just to keep my beer at 68dF. Lol! If only I were so lucky! Good luck man :rockin:

How do you aerate? what was your mash temp? Stuck fermentations can be easily attributed to an improper oxygenation level (or the O2 level was too high, probably not the case though). If your conditions were optimal for your yeast buddies they would have done their job at 85+ and you would be...

what was your aeration method? A quick shake will just not suffice. I swirl the **** out of mine for a good 5 minutes or so or until there is a good 10" on foamy head on my wort. Or you can pump air into the wort, either way it sounds like you might need to aerate more. Hard to tell though. But...

to the original poster, the oxygenation is for pre-fermentation, like the others have stated previously. Don't forget to filter the air that you put in to avoid adding additional contaminants. One reason you do not want to add oxygen later in fermentation is that it allows whatever small...

Brewers yeast has lost the ability to have sex since it has been so domesticated. Brewers yeast only buds asexually and not sexually.... Not true at all (the O2 part)... If you are using pure O2 you can very easily introduce too much oxygen into the environment. Upon doing so you will kill all...

whatever recipe you go with, use an organic vanilla extract and not vanilla beans. Vanilla beans work great but the flavor fades quickly. For a 5 gallon batch you would need like 8 whole beans to get that intense of a flavor. The extract will taste great, breckinridge more than likely uses an...

+1 on pitching vigorous starters!

what he said :)

+1 on control Boil overs happen in starters just as they would in a real batch of beer. I would Imagine that you could. But in the lab I work in we always use water baths. I imagine that putting a towel underneath the flask (in the water obviously) would keep the air bubbles from disturbing...

you can put the flask in a water bath (pot with water) and boil that if you don't have a gas stove... as long as the flask you bought is made of pyrex you will be fine. They are made to be autoclaved which takes place at a high temperature under higher pressure than normal so you won't have any...