Recent content by Tahoebrewer

It was snowing and in the 20's last night (north of Tahoe). There's still over 20 feet of snow on the ground, and we received a foot of snow in the last few days. Second largest winter on record, and there's still plenty of time left to become the largest winter on record as we only need...

We have snow here from October till June so I do this all the time. It's pretty convenient to just toss all the bottles and kegs into a drift out on the deck. But I've slept in many snow caves and snow is a great insulator as jeffmeh points out. So depending on the water content of your...

Depends on the style, but I typically let my beers age for 6-8 months. I think it adds a certain depth of character lacking in many young beers, but again it depends on the style. I've noticed that longer than 1.5-2 years and oxidation becomes much more common unless special precautions are...

Don't sweat it. I've left beer in plastic buckets for 6 months at a time on accident. I stuck a batch in the back of a closet and forgot about it. Turned out great anyway.

I've always covered all my carboy's in black plastic yard bags, as McMalty suggests. I lager beer under my house and there's an occasional fungus problem down there when the snow melts, so it's a second line of defense against spores and dust. Never had a problem. Lots of light can pass...

Welcome back. Cheers for having a good attitude about it. You can't take anything personally on the interweb. I started brewing when I was 17 (in California), my father was a homebrewer and he knew if I respected the art of brewing I would be unlikely to abuse alcohol. He poured me my first...

I don't usually comment but I just broke my first carboy a couple weeks ago, so relevant. Five gallons of pumpkin gingerbread ale splooged all over the garage floor. I was heartbroken, to say the least. Almost busted a kneecap, and had a big black bruise to show for it, but fortunately kept...

I brew a bit above 7000 ft., boil at 198 F, but have never had any issues. I use the same methods at low altitude, always a 90 min boil, and haven't noticed any effect on hop utilization or anything else for that matter. The biggest problem I have is keeping the temps up for ales (it snowed...