Recent content by moffatt163

Half the sugar was undercarbed...I'd say two thirds would be better. That will be my next attempt.

I primed a full size keg with the same amount of sugar I would use for bottling and it was WAY overcarbonated. I am currently kegging a batch with half the amount, I'll post the outcome.

You can sit on trub for several weeks before worrying about the possible off flavors, and in many situations several months. There's more benefit sitting on the yeast bed than rushing to get it to secondary. The "dead" yeast are still working and doing wonderful things for your beer, you don't...

+1 for kal's post. I would find a probe immediately after the HLT not nearly as useful as a probe low in the grain bed or below the false bottom.

I break it up...day before I do my grain milling and a yeast starter. Next day I can start around 9am and pitch the yeast around 2. Double brew around 5:30. I very much prefer getting every possible small detail ready the day before and just lighting the burner the next morning. Cup of...

Yeah it will be quite an adventure. I'll be recruiting help but I like to bottle because I give out a lot of beer and it's not convenient to have it all in kegs at the house. I take it to friends' bbq etc and it just works out better. Moving to secondary today...pretty excited about the...

UPDATE - The airlocks showed activity for a full 10 days and today I took my first hydrometer reading and it's down from 1.074 to 1.016. Day after tomorrow I will be transferring to secondary for two weeks then bottling. I imagine after secondary it should be close to 1.010 :mug: Thanks for...

Thanks, I just manage to stress myself out

10/10/13 is the date and White Labs puts that four months out so 6/10/13? And I don't have a stir plate but was recommended to swirl the wort as frequently as possible which I did. Visible fermentation started within 10 hours. I'm not in a hurry and I know that 80% of the fermentation will...

So I just brewed a 20 Gal batch yesterday and did a yeast starter instead of buying like 8 vials of yeast. I asked the guy at the shop who has given me great advice over the years. He said I could use 2 vials of White Labs Cal Ale and do a 2000mL starter for 20 gallons of wort. I told him I...

You'll get a better bitter flavor with a 60 hop boil instead of the bittering extract. Use extract for the sugar content but use hops for your bitter/flavor/aroma profile

That's not terrible. If you're not happy with it pitch more yeast.

What's the OG and what was your target FG? 1.020 isn't necessarily a bad thing. If it comes out sweet just pitch more yeast or use a starter next time. It'll dry out the sweetness and raise the ABV a little

I second gloatbrewing on that...if you find a local supply shop and/or a club you will find a lot of support and some of them teach classes for extract and all-grain brewing. Don't worry about what you don't understand now, homebrewers love to share their passion!

Columbus hops have an alpha acid rating of 11 - 16% and cascade hops have a rating of 4.5 - 7%. The higher rating will give more bitterness to your beer. The two factors to adjust are amount and boil time. 60min boil is standard so reduce the amount of high alpha acid hops and maybe add to...