Recent content by smallbatch

Made this beer a couple months ago now and just started in to my second keg of it. I haven't tasted it too critically, but I'd say it's a solid oatmeal stout. I don't recall exactly what - if anything - I changed of the original recipe, but I don't think it was much. You can check out my...

The first brewer calls for "dehusked chocolate malt (400° L)." I suppose he means Carafa Special II and that it's just for color adjustment, no flavor contribution. Anyone else have thoughts on that?

Here.

That is probably the best looking kegerator I've seen (granted, I haven't looked at whole lot). In fact, I e-mailed a pic to my own SWMBO to get her reaction to something like that going in our living room (we have a really small place). I figured she couldn't argue too much :)

Sorry I didn't notice your question sooner and maybe it's too late for you to notice the answer now. Yeah, the 'cake' is mainly yeast at the bottom and shouldn't be dead unless you left it there for a very long time (>4 weeks at least). I'm not well-versed on the terminology, but my...

It sounds like you're essentially doing a re-pitch at this point. Basically the same procedure as if you'd collected the yeast off the cake of a full batch. You can use the pitching rate calculator and maybe give 'em a bit of wake up with a small starter-like concoction. You shouldn't...

I just experienced the perfect storm, culminating in the explosion of my first bottle bomb... I happened to be in the kitchen tonight, prepping to bottle a 1 gallon batch of Pale Ale and 1 gallon batch of ESB when an explosion occurred behind me. It wasn't earth shattering or terribly...

I just want to make sure people are clear that there's no sort of chance or anything associated with this process. No magic to it, rapid temperature change of glass can certainly cause shattering. As long as you keep the temperature differential minimal you won't have problems, but you...

I think the reason you haven't seen mention of this before is because almost by definition the type of brewer that has to do significant topping-off (enough to effect the temp of the wort significantly) of the fermenter does so because they're doing a partial boil, meaning they're more likely to...

Once the main fermentation is complete, you shouldn't have to worry too much about a rise in temperature. A cooldown could be a problem by potentially causing the yeast to flocculate before fully cleaning up after itself, but warming at this stage shouldn't create undesirable flavors and may...

These comments contradict (to my recollection) the comments made by John Palmer in a Brew Strong episode about DMS. Essentially, I recall that the extract is boiled under vacuum for a long period of time, preventing the DMS precursor - SMM - from converting to DMS to a large extent. I'm not...

First off, I wouldn't modify the extract addition. The reason for boiling extract for a specified period of time (at least 60 minutes) is to get out certain undesirable compounds (DMS at least, though there may be more). Though there are implications between boiling of the wort and hops...

You're right, Frodo. My apologies (along with an edit to reflect). However, my point stands: take advantage of the small batch to taste the effect of any change of boil density.

I scratched my head at this for a while also. I'm pretty sure it just comes down to semantics (or technical correctness). You said you would reduce by 40% when you should have technically reduced by 60%. I.e. a reduction of 40% (100% - 40%) means you would end up with a 3-gallons-worth batch...

I've been brewing regularly for a couple years now (though I first started via the Mr. Beer route in about 2003). Lately I've noticed most of my Google brewing searches have ended up here and been answered very well. In the course of those searches however, I've noticed several posts make...