Recent content by mlager

I researched this method and was intrigued, but I'm a little confused. The idea is that you had hops prior to filling the boil kettle from the mash tun in an effort to impart hop flavor and aroma to the beer. We obviously add hops at various boil times to control how much the oils are broken...

I harvested a few viles of WLP001 off a pale ale I did about 6 months ago, so they've been in the fridge for about half a year... Just for fun, I whipped up a 2L starter and pitched all three vials. Took about 24 hours to see activity and it's active but not going super crazy, at least yet. It's...

Awesome, good call, I bumped it down and will let it wait. I do notice, for example, after I do a shaking carbonation, bubbles are more like the ones in soda rather than the fine bubbles I would expect in beer.

I've had a pretty steady flow of beers being produced, so much that I have an extra chest freezer keeping kegs that aren't under pressure cold, at 40 F. I just had a tap become free so I put it under pressure at 30 PSI @ about 45 degrees. Normally I throw the beer in at 12 PSI for a little over...

It began bubbling about 3 hours ago and is picking up, I'm just not used to that sort of lag time. Nothing crazy yet but ill probably end up stepping it up just to be safe, Belgian wit yeast got scarce in Phoenix all of a sudden, ha!

Picked up the last smack pack my LHS had of the Wyeast Belgian Wit yeast... I activated it a few hours before I made the starter and it didn't puff up too much. I made a 2L starter and pitched the yeast and put it on my stir plate. 12 hours later, no activity at all. I've got a blow off tube on...

Doesn't look abnormal to me, I wouldn't worry about it... Why such a small stater tear in that 2L flask? I usually run 1600-1800 mL in that thing for a couple days and get a nice thick yeast cake!

I've brewed a lot lately for the purposes of allowing the beer in my kegs to condition for a bit longer. Trying to get in the habit of having beer on tap, beer in the fermenter, and beer in kegs that will condition while I don't have room on tap. That being said, I want to get a chest freezer...

So for the past year I've been kegging my beers, I usually throw em in the fridge at 10 PSI and let them sit about 7 days and I get a nicely carbonated beer. I notice, however, that the beer gets better and better as I make my way through the keg, clearing up, getting crisper, mellows out in a...

Actually, we cool down pretty good during the winter. It's not uncommon to hit freezing temps for a while... It's not crazy compared to other places but most people are surprised by how cold it gets here.

Well it looks thus far like I may have been somewhat successful harvesting yeast! Pitched one vial and woke up to this. Now what to brew this evening. I was thinking porter, might be nice as it will be ready right as Arizona is cooling down!

I just brewed up a starter, just like I always do, some good old pilsner DME, 2 Liters, and some yeast nutrients. I notices that even before adding the yeast I have some good old clumpiness going on, not something I've really seen before. Should I be concerned, or could it just be some malt that...

Thanks for the feedback, I think I'm going to do a starter with a vial and brew up a porter... I was just going to do a starter what better experiment that brewing a beer with the yeast I just washed!

Well here is what I ended up with... Looks like it worked out ok... I'm sorta in experiment mode, I'm thinking about making a starter just to see what kind of activity I get... If I do, does it make sense to store the yeast from the starter? I suppose if I pitch a vial and let it go for 48 hours...

I would have always thought freezing yeast would kill me, I was planning on throwing me into the fridge... Is there anything special that must be done to freeze me and bring e back to life other than using a starter? Do they last a lot longer frozen?