Recent content by nuber

The only other issue i've had while brewing was due to using an organic flavor extract rather than making my own tincture. I wanted to make a Key Lime Pale Ale with the idea of a nice, refreshing beer just in time for summer. I used the recommended amount of the Keylime extract for 5 gallons...

I brewed an english barleywine a while back with an OG of 1.124. I had made a starter and threw in another two "slap packs" just for good measure. I put the fermenter bucket in my temperature controlled freezer and went about my business for a few days. When I went back to check on it the...

I bottled a black hefeweizen about three weeks ago and had my first bottle bomb this morning. One bomber blew and it took out another one next to it. Should I just toss the entire batch? Most of them are in 12oz bottles, there are only two other bombers. I just don't want shrapnel in...

I had an issue cooling down my porter a month back or so, where it took overnight to cool it down before I had it at pitching temp. I threw in some hops at flameout and the temp did get down to about 110 pretty quickly and then halted. When I tasted the hydrometer sample before bottling it...

I have a small batch of beer that I made just for a party (2 gallons) and I don't really want to bother with cleaning bottles and stuff (lazy). I have a few metal growlers, two with the swingtop lids and one with a screw on lid. Can I just bottle in those? Will they hold carbonation?

I used a Wyeast London Ale yeast the other week on a porter and it showed literally NO activity in the airlock. I popped the lid after about a week and there were only tiny bubbles in the wort coming up and no sign that there was signficant krausen but when I checked the gravity it had fully...

Just to re-iterate, i'm not unhappy with the Speidel and the leak wasn't a defect with it but rather was my own fault. The drain plug wasn't screwed on all the way. I just assumed it was screwed on sufficiently when I received it. This is more of a cautionary tale post, letting any new...

Yup I did sanitize it and it didn't seem to leak at the time. It was probably such a slow leak that I didn't notice until it sat overnight.

I brewed a beer last night and used my 30L speidel fermenter for the first time. I was so excited to use it. Got the beer down to pitching temp, tossed in the yeast and sealed it with the airlock. Woke up this morning to find a pool of beer around the fermenter and what looks to be about 2...

So this really never showed much visible signs of fermentation and the krausen was the smallest I had ever seen, however it actually attenuated at nearly 80%. I guess even though it wasn't very vigorous visibly it did the job in about the usual 4-5 days. Interesting to say the least.

I link directly to the forums page. Oops :p

I had my girlfriend pick up my list of brew stuff the other day and when I checked the date on the Wyeast London Ale 1028 smack pack it was 9/20/2014. I just pitched this yesterday. I see that the wort burped a bit into the airlock but no other airlock activity since cleaning it out. Will an...

I put ice in the sink under and surrounding the bucket and filled it will tap water (which was cold as the groundwater is cold right now. I didn't swap the water out but there was still ice in the sink and was cold to the touch. As for it getting down to temp within 8-12 hours hopefully it...

I brewed a porter last night (small 2 gallon batch) and used my normal method of icebath in the sink but it wasn't dropping below the 130s much after even 2 hours. I'm not sure what happened with this. I did use an aluminum pot instead of stainless steel this time, maybe that was it...

Have you done a PH test on your water? If water is especially acidic it can lend to sour/tart/off flavors. You mentioned topping off with spring water but have you done an entire batch with bottled water? You may not have had issues with wine because the acidity is already expected to some...