Recent content by Tcl1999

Yeah, never saw any in the finished product, but man, when transferring from the fermenter to the keg it looked like a graveyard.

Nah, just toss them in. I harvested my cascade and used them like any other commercial hop. Obviously I had no idea what the AA% was, so I just went IPA. Turned out great. You might find that you have a lot of aphids, but I didn't notice any flavor problems. Called it an Aphid Ale!

Thanks for the reply. I have a double post on this because I didn't think the first one went through. It might be the carbonation, and it might be my beer lines and tap. I bought a longer beer line to try to reduce the amount of foam in my glass, but it also just seems to make the beer come out...

I have noticed that my last few beers have been disappointing, but I couldn't pinpoint what was missing. I have been focusing on lighter beers, like pilsner, kolsch, etc. I recognize that these are tricky, but I feel like I should be able to get close to the target. Other styles I have...

I am about two weeks out from the finished product...just kegged today. Tasted it coming out of the fermenter and I am really looking forward to the final product! Now comes the hard part...waiting for the keg to carb up. Patience is not my strength.

I brewed this yesterday and nailed my brew day except for one small problem...if you could call it that. I finally got my mash efficiency up, which means compensating for poor efficiency with extra grain is not necessary. Problem is, you don't really know that you had good efficiency until you...

I don't drink much liquor or wine, and beer is usually self-limiting because there is not enough room in my stomach to put down 3 or 4 pints of double IPA in a session *usually.* This one snuck up on me. It has been a long time since I have been that hungover. Turns out I don't deal with...

I did not bottle, I kegged it. Much easier to dispense that way...which can be a blessing and a curse. I left it in primary for a good 3 months, only transferred to keg because I wanted the carboy back. It then cold conditioned for the remainder in the keg.

I "brewed" two batches of this back in January and can report that it is definitely worth the wait, and Montrachet blows Lalvin EC-1118 out of the water. I made one 5-gallon batch with Montrachet and one 1-gallon batch with EC-1118 and the Montrachet is awesome. Very white wine, but a lot of...

I think mash pH may have been a problem as well. I was talking to a local Brewer who uses our same water source and he mentioned a need for pH adjustment because our water has a high pH. I started with distilled for this brew because of the style, so that may have also been a factor.

I don't check pre-boil gravity because I don't know how it should compare to my desired OG. I have a pretty consistently terrible brewhouse efficiency (58-60%) so I bump up the grain bill to account for that. I have been trying to improve my efficiency, and clearly the step mash is more...

So I am lagering this beer now. I took my final gravity reading and ended up with a much bigger beer than I had planned. I usually do a single infusion mash, but I followed the step mash in the recipe and ended up with much better efficiency than usual. Since I had better efficiency, I ended up...

I just brewed a batch this weekend. It is my first lager and probably the closest I have followed a recipe so far. I used distilled water with some calcium chloride to stay close with the water profile, and I also discovered that my well water has high mineral content. I finally have the...

I'm in!

Well I can't brag that my recipe made the cut, but my picture did! WOOO! Apparently my camera skills exceed my brewing skills...I need to work on that. #Priorities