Recent content by RockSlice

Sage is a pretty bitter herb. But it will depend upon the particular type of sage you use, and how fresh it is.

As I've discovered since posting, raw honey actually does have alpha-amylase in it (google "honey amylase"). Most of the brands in the grocery store are processed, though, denaturing the amylase. Which is probably why the second attempt did absolutely nothing. Unfortunately, I didn't record...

Depending on your brand of honey, you may get a very different result than with sugar. Honey contains amylase, so if it's not denatured, it can keep working on any unfermentable sugars and starches left in your beer.

To be on the safe side, you may want to boil the wort and repitch. Flies can carry a lot of nasty bacteria on their feet, and fruit flies can carry the bacteria causing vinegar to form. But you may be fine, especially if it was a heavily hopped wort.

I can't believe nobody's mentioned the biggest problem with their bottles: They're twistoff. I had about 90 Yuengling bottles saved up for homebrewing before learning you shouldn't recap twist-offs. :(

That was basically what I was thinking, but there was a fairly major change with the addition of honey, more than can be explained by the addition of mead. Can honey convert starches at all? Or do you think I just got lucky with some random contamination that could digest it? BTW, just...

Had a small experiment turn amazing. Did a small (1/2 gallon) batch of oatmeal sage beer, just to see how it would turn out. Used: 1 lb oats, 1/2 of which I lightly roasted (not oat malt) sage (didn't measure - just to taste) cry havoc yeast Started off really poorly. Wort was cloudy...

From what I know of dissolving gases, it should still carbonate. The CO2 gets produced in solution anyway, then normally bubbles out into the headspace, increasing pressure until equilibrium is raised enough. Almost no volume on the headspace shouldn't prevent carbonation, as the dissolved CO2...

What I'm doing is pulling out a 1L starter from the wort, which is fast and easy to cool, and then leaving the rest of the pot sealed with cling film until the morning, when I siphon the cooled (and settled) wort into the fermenter and pitch the starter in. (I use a venturi effect attachment to...

You could try using a venturi device ( Aspirator (pump) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) to create a partial vacuum while you heated it. Alcohol's boiling point stays lower than water at lower pressures. No need to worry about oxidation, as it wouldn't be exposed to the air. No...

If you have a pressure cooker/canner at home, most can be used fairly efficiently to produce distilled water. Just make sure your hoses can handle the heat. May take some time for 5gal, but you know nothing's in the water.

Only if the pre-chamber was rigid... if it was a flexible "bladder" type chamber, it would still be able to drain and refill without any air hose attachment.

Here's an idea: between the bottling bucket and the wand have a reservoir big enough for one bottle. Have the valve going to it close as the wand comes down, and not open again until the wand is back up. That way, you just calibrate it once, fairly simply, and get the same volume for every...

I think you'd want to have some sort of float sensor on the bottle wand, though, as fill rates will probably vary slightly as you progress. Wouldn't want to spill any beer, now would we? As far as timing, I wouldn't even use any timing controls. The capping will probably be faster than...

Sounds like it would work, though the hardest part I think would be moving the bottles from one station to the next, which is why I suggested the arm. Another idea is to use a big gear to move the bottles around in a circle, with the different stations around the circle. Would probably be a...