Recent content by vnyand

Ahha a graff... i suspected that but was too lazy to look it up at the time, thanks. It's not the size of the pot that I'm concerned with it's the sparging. Hopefully I'll have someone there to give me a hand, but if not I'll settle for 65% efficiency over burn wounds. Thanks for the tips on...

Since I'm away at school I've had to resort to small batches of highly experimental brews, since quality control in a dumpy apartment is a pipe dream. Came up with this recipe the other day and definitely going to brew it up this weekend. I've never tried to mash without my all grain set up at...

If there are no additives all cider (which is the same as "pure apple juice") comes in around 1.055. It may be lower if this was filtered (probably to make it more juice-like instead of typical cider) but it shouldn't be by much. The brewing yeast may leave more residual sweetness, but when a...

I'm not doing a secondary nor am I carbonating, so I'm considering "dry hopping" a growler of this with a muslin bag of chamomile, lemon balm and lavender and seeing what I can get. Really looking for that herbal, grassy feel...

LHBS was out of chamomile, so I grabbed two boxes of straight chamomile tea bags from the grocery store. Ended up only using 1 box (20 bags, .73 ounces) mainly because I was sick of emptying them in the muslin bag. Used wildflower honey. Did not take gravity because I wouldn't have been able to...

Yah might be... I can see the bag in my head but for the life of me I don't remember the weight. Let me amend it to "3-4 cups" of dried camomile, which I know is a lot but I used it in a mead once and it takes a lot to get it to come through.

Going apple picking this weekend. Wasn't planning on doing a cider this year, but as the opportunity has presented itself and my 3 gallon system is sitting idly by... 2.5 gallons UV pasteurized fresh local cider (containing <1% potassium sorbate) 1 lb wildflower honey .73 ounces dried chamomile...

I've read elsewhere that if you start out with pasteurized cider it actually gets vinegar-like after a couple months. Starting from unpasteurized supposedly produces cider that will store for a year. Pretty sure I read it on a Northern Brewer forum. I can dig up the link if anyone is interested.

I haven't tried this yet, but the easiest method my friends (two chemical engineers) have thought up so far is to just make a tincture (alcohol + hops) to extract the oils (couple weeks should do it), then get your wax up to 200 degrees and add the tincture. The ethanol flashes off at...

My buddy's BPA got veggie hop notes from dry hopping A. too much B. too long C. in too boozy of a beer Ended up delicious after 6 weeks bottle conditioning, but who wants to wait that long for a BPA

o yah im not arguing that other hops wont work, i was just surprised saaz didn't come up right away

Well for the yeast I'd just use the WL001 (California Ale), and make a big starter.

Idk about the drag issue, chem people don't really worry about how their equipment works. The idea of a bigger stir bar is so it can keep up with the amount of liquid in the flask, I don't see why drag would be an issue particularly when it's going to be uniform across the whole bar simply...

cool, yah like I said I haven't brewed your specific recipe, but my uncle did a breakfast stout with a pound of lactose that was insanely sweet. I'm planning on brewing something like this in the fall but I haven't made up my mind just how sweet I want it yet, so thanks for throwing some numbers...

none of the recipes mentioned (though they sound awesome) using Saaz... I'd probably use a ton of saaz in late addition/secondary with a wheat beer since the Saaz has such a spicy profile it'd work well with the phenols from a hefe yeast.