Recent content by Kula

Hey guys thanks for the info and links. That's a good one Mumassan. I ended up pitching a little more than a half cup of slurry which is about what Mr Malty said for a 1060 gravity of a batch my size. Bubbling away...

I siphoned a blonde ale off the yeast (s-04) and planned to throw a porter on top of it right away. Got a little delayed so a few days have passed and the cake has just been sitting at room temp (65*). Any reason why I shouldn't still use this cake? Thanks!

Soccer + Homebrew = Happiness

If you backsweeten then bottle you will certainly get bottle bombs, or in the very least some very over-carbonated cider. You can backsweeten then pasteurize in the bottle but it's tricky. Bottles must be completely submerged in near boiling water for probably at least ten minutes. There are...

boil some water in each kettle. let it cool. taste the water. just an idea. aside from the kettle idea, boiling grains (or steeping at too high a temp), or the PH factor mentioned before could play a role.

I'd say scale back the roasted and coffee by 4-8oz each and throw in a pound of dark crystal to give it a more malty backbone. Consider using just an ounce of Magnum, and just and ounce of Cascade for the dry hop, just for better balance. Sounds tasty to me!

interesting thread. is it safe to assume this brewer would be best advised not to use calcium or gypsum ?

Lame. Buy from your LHBS.

I would say bump up the crystal malt to .75 or 1#. Also, consider adding the coffee as a cold extract brew instead of straight beans. I've tried beans and grounds in the secondary and it left a somewhat harsh "grounds" like taste. Look up 'cold extract coffee' to see what I mean. You could even...

I had a bad bitter, sort of acrid funkiness that showed up in two beers that I used some "bad hops" in. the hops were not stored properly (unsealed) in the freezer, and were likely freezer burnt. It was the only two times I used 'questionable' hops, and the only two times I got that awful...

Something interesting I noted is that this beer and a stout I brewed right after it both had detectable amounts of the same acrid bitter funky taste, though at different levels. The lager much more so than the stout. One commonality I noticed in the two beers was the use of some pretty old...

still just gross. tasted a couple days ago and acrid vegetal taste remains. like drinking burnt gym socks. something just completely wrong. asked girlfriend to try and she said didnt taste too bad, then couldnt get funky taste off tongue. said it tasted rubbery or like plastic. today when i...

I think Cubslover's recipe looks sound. You can do a 5 lb mini-mash in a kettle on the stovetop. Bring your water up to 165* and immediately throw in your grains, loose. This should get your mash temp to about 153* If it's within 5 degrees don't mess with it, if it isn't, adjust heat until...

Kevin, I keep thinking of something. You say you no longer use k-meta, but with the orchard juice there is bound to be a decent amount of wild yeast that makes its way into the batch from the apple skins. Do you feel like this is an issue, or do you just pitch enough commercial yeast that the...

nice. did you use real almonds or some kind of extract. i ask because i've thought about using some nuts in a brew. good luck with the double header.