Recent content by LambChop4Prez

That was probably a pelical (sp?), those are usually formed by some sort of bacteria.

So with how busy the holidays can be, it can be difficult to get a brew day in around the end of the year. And since I didn't have the time to formulate a recipe, I decided to throw together a kitchen sink beer with all the excess grain I've accumulated over the past year. I think I got some...

No worries. There is plenty of yeast in suspension to do the job. A secondary "fermentation" isn't really a fermentation per-se, more just the yeast cleaning up after itself when its done fermenting.

For timing out my brews, I have my Google calendar open and look for when I want the beer to be ready. I count back 5 weeks if I plan on bottling or two months if its a bigger beer. Then I create events on my calendar for all the important dates (make a starter, brew day, racking day, and...

I'm surprised this hasn't been said yet in this thread, buy it bears repeating every time our canine companions get brought up. NEVER let you dog eat the hops. It WILL kill them. Grains are fine tho. My sisters and a few friends have dogs and I always make them treats with my grains. They all...

Racked to primary a few hours ago. Had a great stuck sparge and clogged my counterflow chiller. Hopefully it'll come out good.

Get some iodine and some chalk and look up how to do a starch conversion test. May help in the future.

I'm currently mashing my Russian Imperial Stout. Hoping to have it ready by November. Next week I'll prolly make my pumpkin ale for October/November. Week after that will be Christmas ale. I plan on being fully stocked this holiday season. Started way too late last year.

Never made a saison before, but an interesting idea would be to brew 4 gallons of a base saison (sour mash maybe) and then add fresh apple cider mid fermentation. Make sure the cider is pasteurized, cause you don't want your yeast battling the cider's yeast.

I really wish I could have saved enough of it to do this. Unfortunately, the majority of it was on the inside of my refrigerator and the floor around it.

Start fermenting your unpasturized cider as soon as you get it. At least drop some camden into it. I just finished cleaning a sticky mess in my refrigerator because I had left my cider in there for a week. Lucky for me it was in a plastic jug so I didn't have to deal with broken glass. You have...

I built a hop spider for pretty close to $10. Super effective with my last batch, my counterflow chiller didn't clog one bit with any of the trub! I did get a little break material, but I'm sure that made my yeast nice and happy.

That looks great! One question tho, it looks like you gutted a refrigerator of some sort for your cooling? How did you go about doing that? I really need a ferm chamber and that looks perfect!

I bought some fresh apple cider with the intention of fermenting it. I left it in the fridge for like two months. When I finally took it out, the bottle was under pressure and the cider tasted like it had alcohol in it. It was a miracle!

I've made many ciders before, but I have never considered putting black tea in it. That sounds like it would be delicious! I got my next cider planned out (minus the lime, I like my ciders dry, but not too acidic)