Recent content by Rocksville

Being "finished" or attenuated after 10 days, and being at it's best to drink are two different things. The beer is ready to drink when it's ready to drink. I've seen mixed results with that yeast, but the equipment required to both ferment at that psi and then hold temperatures appropriately...

Looks tasty to me. I think you'll pick up just enough IBU's from those hop additions to keep it balanced. Bittering with all of the El Dorado would push it into IPL territory, but you could move 1/4 oz of that and use it as a First Wort Hop if you're worried about not getting enough supporting...

I was more referencing your first post about stopping an active fermentation, and I wasn't trying to refute you as I agree on premise. I also wasn't going to argue the idea that k-meta kills yeast. I was just saying that with a fermentation that has been going for 7 months, there likely isn't a...

While I agree that an active fermentation is difficult to stop (like a freight train), I don't think a fermentation that has been grinding away for 7 months will put up a terrible fight. I've had good results using a combination of sulfite and sorbate. Generally I'll rack off of the lees and...

PBW will break down some of the calcium deposits (beer stone) better, but for general purpose cleaning oxi-free works great. If you have something particularly crusty, you'll find PBW is far more effective (especially if you can use really hot water). As was said, I would try to avoid...

I attended a cider workshop a year or two ago (can't remember if it was at CiderCon or CBC) that was presented by one of the lab folks from the San Diego lab. She began by basically saying "I have never made cider, I don't like cider, and I don't think anyone in the US makes good cider", then in...

Is there an advantage to running the blended gas for this purpose as opposed to just carbing a beer to 1-1.5 volumes of co2 and then dispensing through a stout faucet with 100% nitro?

I little more c-pils maybe, but I'm not generally a fan of the stuff. If it were me and I wasn't opposed to changing up the grain bill a bit, I would sub out about 10% of the pils for flaked barley or wheat. Or there is decoction if you have the time to spend. That would probably be the best...

Is there a reason you're using so much wheat? Seems like more of a red wheat beer than a red rye. I'd do something like 8 lbs pale, 2 lbs rye malt, 1# c-red, .75 c-rye, and maybe 2-3 oz of something in the 300-400* range for color (or mo-betta, use 4 oz of chocolate rye). I find the c-rye...

Undercapitalization, heavy competition, difficult to penetrate outside accounts, brand obsolescence. I absolutely love the craft beer/home brewing market, but I see so many people trying to jump from homebrewing to the pro side that are talented (or even not that talented) brewers, but not very...

OG's and FG's are generally pretty obviously different ranges of numbers...especially if this was an extract brew. What was the OG "supposed" to be? Was it extract or all grain? If it's extract, then it's a known amount of sugar in a known amount of volume, so you can fairly reliably assume...

Every market is going to be a bit different. Obviously NB has had success with cobranding clone kits, and if you can pull it off with breweries in your area, it's a good way to cross promote. I've got a pair of home-brew shops, and we've tried for years to cobrand some "clone" or even...

Generally, the difference between the cheaper red wines and expensive red wine kits is more evident than it is in the whites. Grape skins will add tannin that comes from the skin, which gives the wine more structure, complexity, and a fuller palate. For table wines, as was mentioned, the...

1) Nitrogen tanks are female threaded so require a different regulator. They are also rated for higher pressure (although I'm not sure if there is any difference in the tanks in actuality...maybe someone knows better on this). You can put nitrogen in the tank, or a blended gas. 2) Typically...

That's a good idea that just takes some advanced planning, and it certainly is more water responsible. I'd think that even taking the kettle into a simple immersion bath full of ice water for the last 5-10 minutes would take care of it. If you can get it to 75 degrees in 15 minutes, I would...