Recent content by LoadedFront

I have started to brew some bigger beers of late, and I am having trouble managing boil over in my 5 gallon brew pot (3 gallon brew for 5 gallons of beer). I have to really babysit the thing and manage temperature to prevent boil over with these higher gravity beers. Is there a particular...

Yooper- Thank you for your reply. So, I more or less just ended up with extract + specialty grain on this batch, then... One follow up to your post: I thought that the specialty grains wouldn't mash; they were just for steeping. My assumption was that that was why there was so little...

Just brewed my first PM using DB's stovetop method not too long ago. I did have some problems maintaining temperature, and my patience got the best of me at a couple points, so I didn't expect great results, but I am curious as to what the common causes of low efficiency are. The recipe was...

I came across this recipe, and in it are instructions not to aerate the wort. I have never seen this before in a recipe. Comments? ------- Sand Creek Brewing Company “Oscar’s Chocolate Oatmeal Stout” 5 US. Gallons (19 L), extract with grains OG=1.056 FG=1.020 IBU’S = 30 SRM=...

Outstanding discussion! I have just been wrestling with this, also. So, in terms of the "flavors" that you get from steeping, would they be on par with the partial mash flavors (sans the base grain flavors), or do the flavors of the specialty grains change through the mashing process? Also...

All- Thanks to all who have replied, and I apologize if my question was a bit ambiguous. I certainly understand the finanicial implication that many have hinted at. The root of my question was whether or not the starter was simply to attain higher cell count, or if there was some other...

If the purpose of creating a starter is to increase the cell count of the yeast to match to your OG, couldn't you achieve the same results by just pitching an additional packet or two of yeast? Beyond a viability test and the financial hit, is there any reason why a starter is preferable to...

I bottled this batch this weekend. I was 16 days in primary. I purchased a hydrometer in the interim and my numbers were 1.012 @ 77 degrees. Does this seem reasonable for the recipe discussed? Since I didn't have an OG number, I don't know how useful the FG number is. I did taste the beer...

Thanks all who have replied. I appreciate the input. I suppose it does make sense to go with a known good recipe to allow for better troubleshooting of your process if that is off. I am thinking I will probably go with some kind of kit for the next go round. Something in the stouts...

Zen. Thank you for your reply. I did in fact use boiled water to get to the total 5 gallons. Although, we have VERY good tap water here on the Front Range of the Rockies. Thanks so much for this info. I will always appreciate the foam moving forward. Any comments/concerns on the...

Thank you all for your replies. Here is the recipe/steps I followed... *Brought the water to a boil (3 gallons), removed it from the heat, and poured in 2 cans of Muntons Light LME (3.3 lbs each). *Put the kettle back on the heat and once it started boiling, I started my 60 minutes. At...

Hello all. I've got my first batch fermenting presently, and thought I would post a few questions/observations I had. 1) When boiling, it seemed that a lot of the hops ended up as kind of an oatmeal consistency caked to the lid of the brew kettle. I did my best to occasionally knock them...