Recent content by mistermateo

I have only needed a blowoff tube using a german and belgian true top cropping yeast, especially wyeast Weheinstephan yeast

Make sure to boil that water before adding it into fermentor too. You wouldn't want to get an infection from your water source. I have heard that some water sources actually having bacteria in the water, nothing that would hurt a human, but gave the finished product a funky taste.

Columbus is an excellent choice. Others that are great ars chinook, centennial, simcoe, citra, amarillo, cascade just to name some popular varieties.

My first year hops only grew to 7 feet tall and produced no cones. I put them into the ground in June so only got about 4 months of growth. The montana growing season is a little shorter than southern states but i have heard that first year hops can produce some cones. I only used nylon string...

It's a lot easier than you think. Make sure that you i have a rough idea of the bitterness that you want as well as how strong you want it. For an IPA i would definitely dry hop with at least 1 oz of hops for a 5 gallon batch. Have fun and you'll see that making your own recipes is easy.

You can get Rhizomes from Midwest Supplies, Willamette Valley Hops, FreshHops.com just to name a few

Sounds like a winner to me! I love Citra hops and i have heard that Ahtanum are just as good. Having a pound of crystal 80 is going to add a good amount of color should be a nice copper to amber.

Could be that you ended up with more than the traditional 5 gallons of wort or that you are taken hydrometer readings at a higher temp than it is calibrated for. With my hydrometer a wort that is 100 F is going to read about .01 lower than a 68 F wort

NICE! I am a big fan of cream ales. Let us know how it turns out.

The yeast should only go dormant until the temp of the wort comes up. Once the wort temp comes up you should see more action. I have cooled my wort too low before and have not had any trouble with fermenting, just keep the beer in the optimal temp range.

I have never heard of this before. The only downside i see is that the most active yeast, assuming you are brewing an ale, is going to be forced out of the blow off tube.

totally try out the two different style yeasts the difference between the belgian and german should be noticable. I must say that White Labs 300 Hefeweizen is pretty good, a lot of banana notes with some close as well. i have also tried Fermentis WB-06 Hefe yeast and it had too much clove...

Tacos!

It will most likely be over carbonated. It might not be that big of a deal but it i would store them in a place that if they explode it wont make a huge mess. I use a big rubbermade container with a lid just in case but have never had a problem.

This sounds awesome, i will definitely have to try this one out! Thanks