Recent content by theguy01205

I am doing five gallon batches. I've got a buddy who wants to start brewing so I'm taking my equipment to his house this Friday. He purchased a BB Robust Porter kit so I think ill make him be the guinnie pig lol. Maple porter sounds good. Racking to secondary with the maple is beginning to sound...

So i have read a whole bunch of the threads regarding using maple syrup and the results seem to be scattered in all directions. How much maple to use, vs when to add it, flameout, secondary, bottling... I want to brew a maple porter or a maple cream ale, given my lack of brewing experience im...

yes this thread had jumped all over the place, lol However in the thought of the sometimes elusive bubbling airlock, it seems the humble plastic bucket may be at fault. Using a glass carboy with a rubber bung sounds like a much better sealed unit. I have a 5 gallon glass carboy i plan on using...

I definitely think a glass carboy is going to my my next investment. I want to take the dive into kegging as well :D Then its on to all grain!

Brewed the kit this past Saturday. Found a local health food store with fresh vanilla beans ($143.39) a pound, thankfully i only needed two, lol. Going to rack to secondary next sat. with the vanilla bean and bourbon mixture, cutting down to 1 1/4 cups bourbon. Cant wait to try this!

My first two batches I had no trouble with what so ever. This last batch i did had a different type of yeast with it that i hadn't used before. My other two batches started bubbling within 8 hours or so a did so for a good 36 hours.So the cause for alarm here was different yeast, not so much my...

Unfortunately no chamber just an a/c controlled room. Coolest it gets is about 66 F. My first batch was an Irish stout at the same temp and it came out great, didn't last for even a week everyone had to have some lol

Am I missing something here? I think I was incredibly clear that I got the bucket sealed ok thus airlock taking off. I simply was trying to relay the message from one new brewer to another to check the seal before opening their beer a bunch of times when nothing is actually wrong. Btw way to...

Being a new brewer and not knowing exactly what all the signs of fermentation are, the simple and not so reliable air lock is the only visible sign of activity coming from my Ale Pale. (Need to buy 6.5 gal. carboy for a primary) Not being able to see what is going on in there is maddening...

Im planning on brewing a BB Smoked Porter kit this weekend. I really want to turn it into something like a bourbon vanilla smoked porter. Being new to brewing and only having two simple kits under my belt, I was wondering if my idea of doing this is on track. I want to brew the kit and while in...

I am planning on brewing a BB Smoked Porter kit this weekend. I want to turn this into a bourbon vanilla porter. I was thinking of soaking 1-2 vanilla beans split and cut up in about 2cups of Jim Beam for a week while said porter is in primary. Then throw the bourbon and vanilla beans into my...

Hello again, just bottled my first batch this past Saturday and purchased another BB kit, "Scottish Ale" today. The kit has a ABV of only 3.25-3.5%. I have read about using honey to boost the alcohol content of your brew. My dad has a pretty extensive maple syrup operation so I have lots of it...

It has been 10 days since I did my first home brew ever, a BB Irish Stout kit. I forgot to take the OG reading before putting the lid on my bucket but I took one about 2 days later and it was at 1.027 ish. I just took another gravity reading today and ended up with about 1.018-1.020ish. Should i...

So when only using the primary after fermentation is done and I have added the bourbon soaked oak chips and honey what is a good amount of time to allow it to sit with the oak chips in there, 1-2 weeks?

Seems how I am completely new to home brewing would it be easier to use a kit, the BB Imperial Nut Brown Ale for example? Then once the primary is winding down transfer to my glass carboy secondary adding in the dark honey and bourbon soaked oak chips. Or can I just add the honey and oak chips...