Recent content by m_stodd

Fixed I've only had contamination in glass, and I've been using the same bucket for years.

I plan on keeping my current beer in it's bucket for at least a month and a half. Don't count on your LHBS to be your source of home brewing information, count on them as your source of home brewing ingredients. As long as they have good ingredients, there's no reason to shop elsewhere IMO...

Agree with shawnbou. You generally shouldn't be moving your beer until three weeks in primary. This is real maple syrup?

That was really tough to read, did you write it while drunk? Don't use a secondary unless you have a very good reason. Leave your beer in primary for 3 weeks, then bottle.

I must have skipped weight loss day in my grade school's basic math class. 0 is the key to losing weight?

There are styles that should be bulk aged. I have a sour that's just had it's first birthday; if I were to have left it in primary, there would be a lot of dead yeast guts in my beer right now. The other time I would use a secondary is when adding something that would otherwise get covered...

Agree with no secondary. I'd leave it in the fermenter another two weeks at least, then bottle.

I always top off with water out of the tap, but then again, I don't chill much, so it's pasteurized by the super hot wort. What's your chilling process? Do you have room to add top off water to your hot wort?

It seems like everyone's getting caught up on flavor and general beer quality, when that had nothing to do with OP's first post. That aside, OP raises a fair question of how much of the work the brewer must do. If I brew an extract batch, much of the brewing process is done outside my home...

Cold crashing will give you clearer beer, but unless you can explain why, I don't see why it would cause hops to settle to the bottom. I can see two effects of cold crashing: Causing chill haze, which will fall out of solution Floculating yeast so they fall to the bottom Both of these...

double post

Mine is discolored, I've been using the same one for about two years. I don't think it's affects my beer to any noticeable degree. If you think about the amount of residue discoloring your fermenter compared to the amount of beer in it, that's an extremely small amount. Molecule for molecule...

Why are you 'upgrading' to a carboy? The lid on my 'ale pale' is super tight, maybe you need to try another one if it's the lid that bothers you.

Definitely don't add water to your beer. If you're worried about oxidation, (you shouldn't be in the case IMO), then adding water might oxidize it more. Can you explain why you couldn't have just bottled instead of going to secondary? I'd recommend bottling as soon as it's as clear as you...

I have a 5g kettle (I think), and do 5g partial batches. The most I've mashed was around 10lb, and that was too much. I'd recommend start by mashing around 5-7lb and see how it goes.