Recent content by joshareed

I'd start at 5mL/gal and taste. I'd also give the keg a good shake and a day or so to homogenize. I had good luck with this in a gose that had some existing tartness but not where I wanted it. You can always add more but you can't take it out.

As for damage mitigation, I do agree that Midwest could do a better job communicating, even if it is just to say: "Hey, we're still monitoring our systems. We still have not found any security issues." It's definitely bad PR for them. But as a forum, we also have to be careful. Sharing...

I had fraudulent charges on my debit card with similar patterns--Walmart.com, Sears.com, Gamestop, gaming websites--during the same time period. I have never shopped online with Midwest. So that's another data point. Hopefully it isn't them but I don't think "we all shopped at Midwest" is as...

Here's my experience with all the brewing I've done with Brett and bugs: 1) Brett is slow in the secondary but if the gravity readings are the same across two months, you should be good. If it is cool, you can try to get the carboy above 68-70F. That'll wake the Brett up. 2) You don't have to...

If you're interested in this idea, I'd definitely check out a Berliner Weisse. Mine is 70/30 pilsner/wheat, no boil. Not a single of the 12 score sheets I got from competitions, including NHC regional and final rounds mentioned DMS.

Competitions don't care about the age, just how tasty and close to style the beer is. That Flanders Red I entered was close to 2 years old but I've also entered beer that were less than a month old.

Thanks for the tidbit about the runner up best of show. I got my score sheets today and while I think the BW was legit, the Flander's Red was a bit of a gimme. Only 5 beers in the sour ale category and a 30 score. I sent both off to NHC before I had the results so hopefully at least the BW...

Eh, no worries Matt. I stumbled across your rant after searching for March Mashness results and it gave me a healthy chuckle.

Do you get much conversion with water and grain mixed at 100F to give the lacto sugars to eat? The process I'm describing is basically what Papizan, Jamil, and BYO is calling sour mashing, whether that's proper or not. It works for me but as with everything, YMMV.

My sour mashing technique is pretty similar. I mash and sparge as normal than transfer back to my kettle. I pitch a couple ounces of grains and then put a layer of sanitized plastic wrap on the surface of the wort. My kettle will fit in my oven, so I just put the kettle into my oven and use...

I think a sour mash + lacto is an interesting idea. Pure lacto strains are less complex than a sour mash because the sour mash introduces more bugs than just lacto, but are far more consistent and reproducible. So a combination of both may give you some of the complexity with the safety net of...

I do my sour mashes and lacto starters in the oven with just the light on. It keeps the temp around a 100. You can also turn it on for a minute or two a couple times a day to inject some more heat.

Not sour, more tart. As Almighty said, Brett doesn't really produce sour. I'll also agree that with the 3711, adding Brett in the primary doesn't buy you much unless you're planning on funkifying the whole batch and are lazy like me :) Set it and forget it for a couple of months.

I do a very similar beer in both the grain bill and the yeast selection (3711 + JP dregs). The 3711 is a beast but I always get a nice level of Brett tartness without any maltodextrin. Mine comes in pretty low either right at 1.000 or just under. I always save a bit of the yeast cake for the...

I've had pretty good luck getting sourness from sour mashing. The warmer you can keep it the faster the sourness will develop. I do my sour mashes in a 4 gallon stock pot. I mash as normal (or cheat with some DME). Next I cool the wort down to around 120F and throw a handful of raw crushed...