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Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

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  1. T

    Cold and hot temp control

    Exactly. I had a batch of Wee Heavy stop at about 1.040 a few years ago when this happened, and I hooked up the heater shortly thereafter. Spending the extra bucks to have true control over the fermentation temp is well worth it.
  2. T

    Cold and hot temp control

    I used a single cooling controller for a while but found that as fermentation ended the beer wouldn't hold its temp as well as I liked. Once the yeast is finished with most of the sugars and stops generating heat you'll need an external heat source to keep it stable. Otherwise the temp can...
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    you know what really grinds my gears

    Absolutely. I'll recommend that new brewers start with something like an IPA because it's so easy to mask your failures behind all of the hops, but if you've been brewing for a while and you can't make a great SMaSH blonde ale then you really haven't learned the process. Just ask the guy how...
  4. T

    Beer mold won't go away - help!

    I'd guess that your most likely culprit is the krausen remaining in your carboy. Remember, you can't sanitize dirt - it's still dirt. However I'm not entirely clear on your process. You mentioned scraping the crud off the sides of the stock pot before bottling. Are you fermenting in the...
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    Kegging failures <- please advise

    Please excuse the pedantry, but... CO2 is in fact poisonous, and not just dangerous when it replaces the O2 we're breathing. I have a friend who formerly worked in a big pharma lab, testing the effects of drugs on rats and mice. He explained how they would kill the critters at the end of a...
  6. T

    Western NC?

    Moved to the Columbus/Tryon area from Raleigh last year. Hops and Vines is a great shop but I do miss the selection available from American Brewmaster and Atlantic Brew Supply!
  7. T

    5.2 Stabilizer doesn't work, can we trust other 5-star products?

    StarSan is easy to test. As noted above, it is an acid sanitizer, and its pH must be below 3(ish?) to work effectively. I have some pH test strips which work in that range so I can confirm my StarSan will still sanitize effectively after sitting for weeks or months. It always reads below 3...
  8. T

    My beer has a coffee flavor

    You may also have started with an amber extract, which would have some of those darker malt flavors to begin with. Caramelization would increase those flavors.
  9. T

    Hard Root Beer

    Very nice! I've been thinking about the same concoction. Eventually I hope to make my own syrup and use it to brew a partigyle root beer after the mash for a big stout or a wee heavy. Some commercial syrup-based experiments seem like a good place to start though!
  10. T

    Paranoid Spouse

    I have a batch of RIS in the bedroom closet now, and something went wrong somewhere because 2 of the bottles have burst. Mind you, this is over a year, and I've only had 2 that went. But both of those were quart size EZ-Cap. None of the 12oz or 22oz pry-off bottles have broken, and all of...
  11. T

    Dandelion wine

    My wife found her grandfather's dandelion wine recipe a few years ago while we were clearing out her grandmother's house. She told me about her memories of gathering dandelions for him when she was very young. I've been wondering about making some but never knew what to expect exactly. What...
  12. T

    I've got a predicament

    Pumping beer from one fridge to another just so you can have all the taps in one place sounds like a royal pain. Why not keep the old one and add another with its own taps, just to increase your serving space? Your second serving fridge can (probably) double as a lagering fridge too.
  13. T

    I put the priming sugar in the secondary fermenter

    I see no reason not to keg it. In fact you could have put it into the keg with the priming sugar and allowed it to carbonate at room temp within the keg.
  14. T

    What to drink in Raleight/Durham NC area?

    Aviator, Big Boss and Lone Rider all have some great beers available in bottles. Go check out Sam's Quick Shop (http://samsquikshop.com/) for just about any bottled beer that's available in the area.
  15. T

    What do I upgrade next?

    Keg system, definitely. It wasn't the upgrade that made the most difference in my beer, but it was undoubtedly the upgrade that I appreciate most!
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