Recent content by Jmat

The kettle can tell when you are looking at it. It will boil over when, and only when, you look away.

If you are bottling it, I recommend adding additional yeast at bottling time. Something flocculant. Cold crashing knocks yeast out of suspension. Likewise, the yeast that is in there may be tuckered out from fermenting the big beer.

I'd suggest some more roasted barley. Normally I err on the less is more side with specialty grains but with a RIS, I think you really want that flavor up front. Another option is the dehusked carafa (the darkest one, III?) which will get you that roasty, chocolately flavor without risking the...

I figured I'd post back to this thread for posterity's sake. As I posted previously, my krausen was not dropping. Well it dropped a few days ago and now continues to clear nicely. Ferm temps were around 66-68 F. So it looks like it drops eventually and you just need to be patient. In my...

Just to qualify that, I sometimes will put the lid half on to get up to a boil faster but then I take it off. The key is that you don't want any of the stuff that condenses on the lid dripping back into the wort. There's a whole Brew Strong, I think it was, podcast that beats this horse to...

I may just be less bothered by chill haze, but I've had what I consider pretty clear beer over the years with just using irish moss or whirlfloc, a nice long primary and then cold storage of the bottles. YMMV I guess. I think I read somewhere that the trick with gelatin is to cold crash first...

bump @sportscrazed2 or anyone else who has used 1469, how did this turn out? I've got a pale ale in the fermenter right now with a thick 1 inch krausen that shows no signs of dropping, though the beer seems to be clearing. It's only been a week or so, so I'm not touching this anytime soon...

I'm in the same boat in terms of my setup. I've just started doing 3 gallon partial mashes where I end up getting most of the fermentables from the grain. I use a 2 gallon beverage cooler to mash and it works pretty well. I've been having some infection problems that I think I've finally...

Plan to bottle a saison tomorrow. It's a 3 gallon batch. As I described in this thread it has been slow to finish. It had been at 1.012 for about a week, I took it down to 65F and let it sit, but checking gravity today (about a week later) it's down to 1.010. An online calculator I...

Thanks all. Upon further reflection and after reading the responses, I decided I'm going to call this done. I'm cold crashing and I'll bottle in a couple days. I figure even if it still goes down a bit, I should be safe from bottle bombs as long as I only carb to a sane level. @rugman: It...

Haven't posted here in a while, though I often lurk. I've got a saison in primary for about three weeks now. Recipe as follows: 3 gallon batch Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison 5 lbs. Bavarian Pilsener, 2 row, (Partial Mash) 1 lb. Pilsen Light DME, Breiss (late addition) 1lb. Bavarian Wheat DME...

There are a number of good sources regarding getting rid of extract twang. I recall there was a whole segment about it on some homebrew radio site. Basic Brewing Radio, I think it was. I seem to recall that they concluded the number one cause of twang is old extract. One way to obviate that...

Hello everyone, First post for me here. I'll be doing an extract hefeweizen soon and I'll be fermenting it in a glass carboy. I plan to use a blowoff tube with the carboy. I was hoping somebody knew the proper diameter for a blowoff tube coming out of a glass 5 gallon carboy? how about a...