Recent content by MikeB

Actually, I have a honey brown ale kit from Northern Brewer in the secondary right now. With being snowed in and all maybe I'll have time to bottle it this week. Should be ready by the typical March ice storms we get around here.

OK, long story, sort of. In January of 2009 I brewed an Irish red ale extract kit. In February 2009 I had a massive seizure that nearly killed me. By the time my thoughts turned back to the beer in my fermenter it had been there for over 2 months, resting on the yeast the whole time. I went...

Nothing bad can happen by letting it sit longer. Many bad things can happen if you don't let it sit long enough. Those instructions are geared toward the person who just wants beer fast, not necessarily good beer. The instructions take a lot of short cuts and shave the process to the bare...

If you keep messing with it every five minutes you're sure to ruin the batch, if you haven't already. Exactly how much colder was it going to get at night that you thought you needed to put a hotplate under your fermenter? Now you've raised the temperature to over 90 degrees Fahrenheit for a...

I think you should warm up to taking hydrometer tests. Otherwise, everything ends up being guesswork.

The kit came with the Wyeast #3522 Belgian Ardennes yeast. The average temperature during fermentation has been around 75. But that was the temperature on the bucket, so I imagine the actual fermentation temperature was a bit higher.

I just took my seven day gravity reading of the Northern Brewer Saison kit I brewed last weekend. It started out at 1.052 and was hovering at 1.011, which I think is just fine. And of course I tasted the sample. I'm pleased with the fact that it exhibits the characteristics associated with a...

How the hell can you afford 7 ounces of hops?

If you can make tea, you can steep grains. The first kit I ever did was the Irish Red from Northern Brewer, which included steeping grains, and it came out fine. The key is to keep a close enough eye on the water that it doesn't get too hot during the steep. That's it.

Not only do I have an American Wheat in the fermenter and a Belgian Saison on schedule to be brewed tomorrow, I just spent $40 on three six packs plus one bottle of craft beer. The beers were 60 Minute IPA, Palo Santo Marron, Rogue's Dry Hopped Saint Rogue's Red, and a bottle of Sam Adams...

Take a new hydrometer reading and see what it is. No use speculating when you've got the means to know for sure.

Found this in another forum. If it has been posted before, I apologize. Beer Contains Female Hormones Last month, National University of Lesotho scientists released the results of a recent analysis that revealed the presence of female hormones in beer. Men should take a concerned...

You're a drunk. Alcoholics have to go to those stupid meetings.

Guess I'll be heading north from Southern MD real soon. I wish I'd convinced my son to go to UMBC instead of Salisbury. I'd be up there every other weekend. Also, talking about bars with great beer lists, there's Rustico in Northern VA, down the GW Parkway past National Airport. They've got...

I'll be bottling either tomorrow or Sunday, so I'll let you know how it goes. I'll take a picture or two during bottling and combine them with a few from brewing day and post them up in the pictures forum. I'm looking forward to tasting my final gravity reading.