Recent content by mlail

For the curious people, the beer turned out great. No signs of wild yeasts and the beer tastes great. It is a light beer (Color), not a large head, in fact the head is less than expected but the taste tells me that there is plenty of CO2. You know the effervescence. Thanks for your guidance!

Thank you for your replies. I believe that waiting a another week is the correct direction at this time. You know when we start a batch we hate to give up on it and waiting a week is nothing. Maybe in another 5 days I will attempt to cold crash the beer to make sure that nothing is left...

Quaker, I took another reading today with the hygrometer and it was dead level with the 1.000 line on the hygrometer. Yes it is a kit from Brewmasters Select. The instructions put the terminal gravity at 1.005 - 1.009. The kit included 3lbs wheat DME, some hops, 2lbs honey... We clean like...

Anyone?

All, I still consider myself new to the hobby and have had some issues on our last two batches. Let me start with this batches question or thoughts. I cooked the wart like one normally would and paid strict attention to temps and times. After cooling the wart I put it into the fermenting...

The beer is now in the bottles waiting on the carbonation process to complete. Then we can say cheers! Thanks everyone for your support and guidance. Happy Holidays

For those that helped by answering my earlier question. Here is the latest update. The gravity has dropped to 1.010 (finally) and the air lock has reduced CO emissions to one bubble per 30 seconds. It was one bubble every 10 seconds and a gravity of 1.042. Nice to see the gravity decreasing...

The tricky part of using the hydrometer is when you spin it, it tends to bob up and down. Once it stops bobbing up and down, it also stops spinning and the bubbles attack :-) I guess it is a wait and see process. I will check it every other day to see when things start changing.

Maybe this is strange but the hydrometer has not changed at all. Seven days from the start of fermentation and the reading is 1.042 @ 63F. The instructions suggest this will continue for up to 16 days. I also noted somethings. Starting with carbon dioxide is still being released. Taking a...

OK, got it. I am having fun, the kit came with 2 buckets and 1 carboy. What the heck is the carboy for? I ask from my limited understanding but if I do not use a 2nd fermenter stage, then the whole think would only use one bucket or possibly 2 buckets, correct? I figure the last bucket would be...

Reviewing my instruction from my beer kit, I noticed an optional step that I believe I will try. First my batch has been in the 1st fermenter bucket for 1 week. Tonight I believe I will siphon from fermenter 1 to fermenter 2 leaving behind much of the settled ingredients behind. This step is...

As a test, I have been checking the fermenter temp inside the box and it is constantly at 66F. Not optimum for a lager but not bad. Thanks for the garage idea!

I like the way you think but unfortunately, I just do not have that kind of space. My shed stores everything that overflows from the garage and at times house and it holds my workbench which is full at the moment.

Newsman, Thanks for the post back but I cannot pull off either suggestion. We are in a small house and busting at the seams. No refrigerator or tub large enough to put the fermenter in. The only other possible option is my shed that does have heat. Maybe I can move it there and set the...

The book that came with my kit states pretty straight forward that after the boil is done to put the lid on and move the pot to a sink with ice water in it. That was my approach. Will a sink of ice water, I got the wort down to 83F in 20 minutes. But it was a partial boil not full 5 gallons. The...