Recent content by NIU_Brew84

Made an lemon apricot wheat ale on cinco de mayo. Let it ferment for the full two weeks and some change. Moved it to the secondary and added 1lb of honey and some more fruit (wanted to lighten the body, offset some of the hoppiness). Air lock went crazy for the first three days, but its been...

When you're harvesting your own from the fermenter, how do you store it? I've read steps indicating basically to stage it up with yeast starter as noted above and then to pour it off into pre-boiled water and keep sealed in the fridge. Sound right? and how long should it keep?

Anyone had success using a cask system? I was looking at the one on Northern Brewer (I'd also prefer to find a cheaper alternative if you know of any) and thinking about investing in one. Once tapped, how long will it keep before it goes flat/gets oxidized? :mug:

This is what I've found, just checking if the instructions are correct (in this instance I'm looking to bottle harvest from Sierra Nevada Pale Ale): 1. Pour the last bit of beer/sediment from several beers into a yeast starter (sanitized jar with 1 pint of water 1/2c of DME boiled and cooled)...

The way this guy at the store was describing them and their "natural purity" was ridiculous. He had a faint hop-esque smell as well.

I'm looking for a really clean taste. So I was thinking primary-secondary-tertiary. The recipe had a small amount of fresh apricot going into the primary, so I'm also looking to avoid the beer sitting on that for too long.

WAS following a recipe. Doubled the amount of hops for the end dose. I like the texture of fruit beers and small hints of fruit flavor, but dislike a strong fruit flavor in my beer. This way though I can tell my wife that I made her a fruit beer and it's not my fault if she doesn't like it.

These were organic hippy "all natural" ones

I was concerned that they were fouling up the fermentation because I haven't had much bubbling in the air lock. What's a good rule of thumb for time in the primary?

How long do you generally ferment in the primary?

Working on a Lemon-Apricot Wheat beer (drinking heavily while doing so, mistake 1, it was Cinco de Mayo though, but I digress) I hit it with 2oz of hops at the end of the boil. Then I left the hops in when I dumped it into the primary (6.5 gallon brew bucket). I'm considering skimming them off...