Recent content by josbor11

So I have brewed and bottled four beers so far. The first three were recipe kits from craft a brew and none of them came out very well. It was a west coast ipa, dipa clone of resin, and a milk stout. Then my fourth batch I created my own custom recipe for a coffee stout. I took a sample of my...

Thanks guys, was overthinking it the whole time! Do you guys recommend anything over table sugar or is that the best route?

No kidding, so quantity doesn't matter? If anything, does this mean less is better?

So I know there are several calculators available online (not sure which is the most reliable) that tell you how much sugar to use based on your style and volume that you are bottling but I can't seem to find any info on how much water you should be boiling said sugar in. I'm bottling roughly...

Well yesterday was brew day....and it was a disaster lol. I'll break it down and hope for the best. I picked up seven gallons of filtered water from the grocery store and started with 4.5 as suggested and brought the kettle up to 162 degrees. Once it hit 162, I took the kettle off the burner...

You rock man. Haven't even started my first five gallon batch yet and you already have me half way to all grain haha. There was definitely a disconnect for me with the terminology. I don't know why but for some reason it wasn't registering to me that extract could be replaced with grain...

Thanks for this! The technique outlined here is considered partial mash then? Would pouring hot water over the grains to sparge create better beer or is it a useless step? Sounds like the only difference is that when you mash your steeping grains and malt together vs just grains on their own...

Yikes, all the responses in here might have me more confused than I originally was lol. Here is the recipe: http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/316464/el-diablo-coffee-vanilla-imperial-stout I checked out that the sticky and noticed he didn't seem to use any malts in that...

So I would just add a a gallon and a half or so of water to a kettle and heat to 160, take it off a burner and steep all the grains for how long? Would 10-15 minutes suffice? Then you heat a second pot (your main wort pot) to boiling water and after you finish your 15 minute steep in pot one...

I am going to be doing my first five gallon batch soon but I am still brewing with extract. How would I go about using flaked oats in an extract recipe? Can you steep them with all the other grains or do I need to do a partial mash with them? If I have to do a partial mash, do I mash all the...

Thanks for all the responses guys.

Regarding yeast, it is telling me that my beer smith extract recipe will be needing almost 400 billion cells to ferment and that two packets of yeast will cover it if using dry yeast. However, when I use yeast pitching and starter calculators online like the one at brewers friend it tells me...

Low ferm temp is no problem right now as our basement is usually pretty cold this time of the year. Yeast is something I am not totally familiar with yet though. I created a beer smith recipe for the base and it gave me an estimated OG of 1.097 and an estimated 9.7% ABV. It's also estimating...

How strong was your coffee with 1 oz? I was considering 2-2.5 with mine. I probably will omit the walnuts but I think coffee, cocoa, and vanilla will blend nicely in a RIS if I can get a really full body.

I think I know what post you're talking about (the one about the pecans). I wasn't sure how much of that also applied to walnuts. Did you do like three ten minute roasts at varying temps? How much oil are we talking about here? Are you using paper towels or bath towels lol? Once you get all...