Recent content by steev23

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone here has experience growing your own barley for brewing. I've been trying it for the first time this year, and it's been going well so far. (btw, here's a blog post I just wrote about the experience, actually...

That's a good question. It's such a low-yield fruit and commercial gathering is prohibited on public lands, while only tribe members can gather on reservation land. So it makes sense that there would be very little out there available for sale. You might find some syrups and stuff at farmers...

the FG was stable at 1.006, which was below the recipe estimate of 1.011. So it seemed done... I think I'm going to chalk it up to uneven mixing or defective/weak bottle. I usually just count on the mixing action of the beer flowing into the bottling bucket from the racking cane but I'll...

I just had my first bottle bomb happen last night. I bottled about 2 weeks ago. It's a belgian saison, which calls for high carbonation, so I primed with 8 oz of DME (I arrived at that number with some online calculator I found, using I think 3 volumes of CO2). This is more than I usually use...

well, just an update - I went ahead and bottled this batch and it's a totally drinkable beer. there's really no trace of the original taste of the saguaro fruit, and it's a very "dry" beer, but that's part of the saison style anyway, as i understand it. It is a very attactive ruby red color...

I'm wondering if anyone has had any success here brewing with saguaro cactus fruit. I've done some searching here on the forums and there was a little discussion somewhere but nothing really about how the final result tasted (or looked). The guy at a local brew store said he had failed the one...

anyone recognize this? should i be worried? seems to happen only after bine gets at least a few feet high and the leaves get a certain size, though not all leaves have it. this is in Tucson, Arizona, first year of growing. thanks, steev