Recent content by RangerG

Good advice, I always pour the hot wort into the ice water then run three fans on the carboy. I'm gonna start cooling the wort to 100 first. Probably why I'm buying a 6gl better bottle cause my glass has cracks around the bottom, Doohhh! Now that I'm making better brews I'm noticing flavors...

My wife never holds the funnel right. She lets it make a seal instead of tipping it a little, then some hot wort blurches up and scares her - every time.

Sometimes I have my hydrometer ready (extract brewer) and have a few too many homebrews while brewing and completely forget to take an OG. So I just leave everything a bit longer; longer primary, take a reading, longer secondary, and estimate based on the ingredients; 40 for DME and 36 for LME...

Just put em in there, watch em float around loose, and then wrap a bag, I use a nylon hop bag, around the end of your auto-siphon when you rack into the bottling bucket. The loose hops actually keep some of the trub from coming through - they're filter-like, so I can get that last little bit...

If it's too sweet for you give it to your wife or girlfriend who doesn't really like hops anyway. I have made a couple of batches that I didn't think I would like, or didn't like, and they sat around for a long time and got a lot better - patience.

I spray the area around the stopper with starsan and then take a doubled-over 2-3" strip of plastic wrap and stuff the stopper in, and then wrap it real tight - stretching the wrap in place ala shrinkwrap style over both the stopper and the top of the carboy so it holds the stopper in place...

I am going to better bottles for beer and using glass for meads. I have noticed cracks in two glass fermentors in the last 6 months and it's a bummer to have to keep buying those things. I almost always use a secondary, if for no other reason than so I can add more hops for aroma and give...

Tanks a bunch der Yooper, the fermentation temp was actually closer to about 57* (I got one a doze temp thingy's that goes 4* lower than what ya set it at until the temp rises back up) and after the blowoff I started to lower it to close to 50* so I think I'll be OK there. By activity I mean...

I put my mead in ANY bottles. Magnums to tiny. My wife especially likes those little 6oz champagne bottles cause they're so dainty. I have noticed that using 5oz corn sugar for 5 gallons gives mine quite a pep and if I'm not hanging onto the champagne cork it'll just fly off all on its own...

I followed the Papazian recipie but only used 15# honey as this is going to sparkle. After the cooking of those gorgeous cactus fruits, the beautiful crimson turned to yellow-brown. In the fermentor it looked just like sewage - my wife and I both just shook our heads, "I'm not drinking that."...

Brewed first lager. After pitching a big starter (WL800 Pilsner) I put it in the fridge at 60*. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion but by the end of the second day there was blowoff and good fermentation for three weeks, then I racked to secondary. It did smell like rotten eggs at first...

Thanks to all of you brewers for the good advice I've been getting the last few months. I am now bottling a 5 gallon batch about every 10 days and am getting far enough ahead that I don't even think twice about letting one sit around for a while before drinking - just makes em better...

Got me an old fridge for making lager and want to try that out in the next month. I'm thinking tempurature and conditioning of the yeast - so I am wondering if making lager starters at 70 degrees is OK? By the way, thanks to all of the advice I get from you guys I am drinking some damn...

I couln't do it. After I racked to secondary I dry hopped on top of the flameout hops anyway - I just love those hops.