Recent content by ODUBrew

I've made a couple beers now but always followed recipes and now I want to try and craft my own but don't know where to start really. I'm thinking I wanted to do a stout and brew it with maple syrup and hazelnuts but I have no idea what grains I should use, how much hops, or how much maple syrup...

Yes, I'm saying I've done this plenty of times before with success and have done nothing differently this time except use a different sugar. What could be the possible problems, I figured maybe bad or old yeast but they are plenty in date and the store restocks the kind I got frequently? If...

So sometimes I may a hooch drink for my friends which is typically table sugar, water, yeast nutrient, and distiller's yeast for high alcohol content. This time I used dextrose and did everything the same but my yeast for some reason isn't taking off like normal. It was in a sealed vacuum bag...

Saturday everyone.

So I pitched my yeast, no starter, three days ago in a stout recipe I'm following with an OG of 1.056 which I hit right on the nose. The FG for the recipe is 1.017 and I'm at 1.018 now after 3 days. Should I rack to my secondary now or wait longer because I have to add vanilla beans and oak...

I was thinking I might be overreacting but I wanted to be sure and do something about early as possible if I could, still trying to learn the ropes. It was just scary because my other beer didn't do this at all, it put krausen up the blow-off tube and did it for about 8 days.

This is the stout I just brewed 2.5 days after pitching the yeast. That brown clumpy stuff that's floating is grain that made it into my fermenter(first all grain). The krausen looked good yesterday and was getting pretty large but it also had the grain in it and now has settled down to a very...

Well luckily the wort isn't completely cooled yet so I haven't pitched the yeast...leaving for the brew store now and thank you guys for your replies.

Well luckily the wort isn't completely cooled yet so I haven't pitched the yeast...leaving for the brew store now and thank you guys for your replies.

I like the LME idea, if I were to do that, how much would I need? I haven't learned to do the calculations yet(where could I go for that). Wouldn't using the LME change the taste of the bear and lighten it up a little? If it will affect it that much I won't but waiting for me will be hard as...

5 gallon og= 1.056, fg= 1.017 ibu=52 srm=61 8lbs. 1oz. 2 row pale 6.5oz. carapils malt 15oz. munich malt 10oz.crystal maly (40L) 6oz. rauchmalz 6.5oz. wheat malt 10oz. chocolate malt 12oz. roasted barley (500L) 1.9oz perle 7%aa (60 mins) 1.6oz. willamette 5%aa (5 mins) wyeast...

So if I get the bag and use that method, once the mashing is done, can I sparge by dumping water into the grain that is still in the bag? I know I saw the partial method was to tea bag it but that doesn't seem very efficient. Also, if I use a bag should I twist the top of the bag tightly to...

So I don't have a mash tun and don't want to have to buy one so here's what I plan to do, tell me if this will be sufficient: I plan to use a pot and heat the water to 168F and then add in my grain, stirring it in and letting it sit for an hour with insulation and shooting for 154F as my mash...

Wow that's definitely kicking. Alright, I was just wondering about it and thanks for the quick response. I'll do a blow off tube I guess from now on...and mine didn't quite make it to the ceiling but it made it about 7 feet up the wall

Well its not day 6 of my fermentation and my krausen started to bubble out of my airlock again. It did this on day 3 and then seemed to stop expanding but it was still fermenting, but now the krausen has started expanding again. Is fermentation normally this random or could something else be...