Recent content by vsavatar

This is my first time actually adding spices to my cyser (only 3 lbs honey). I'd toyed with the idea before but never followed through. So I added some cinnamon sticks, ginger root, and sweet orange peel to secondary. Thing is, it never occurred to me to sanitize the spices before I added them...

I like juniper berries in my beer, and I like herbal teas made from meadowsweet and hibiscus (never tried yarrow before but it smells good), so I thought I'd try the mead located here https://www.norsetradesman.com/blogs/news/fill-your-horn-with-this-viking-era-mead (5 gallon). First, I note...

Well I was adding it to 8.1 gallons of water, not just a few. I thought it was acceptable to treat the entire volume rather than just the mash portion.

I'm trying to hit over 100 ppm calcium in a place where calcium in our water averages only 29.5 ppm. When I use Beersmith's adjustment tool, it tells me to add 1.9 g of gypsum, 4 g of chalk, and 0.5 g of CaCl to 8.1 gallons of water to get it to 102 ppm. However, when I use the Brewer's Friend...

So I'm looking to brew a big beer that's going to come in pretty close to 1.100. This will be my first attempt at such a high gravity, as my last highest attempt was only 1.080. My Igloo mash tun will fit it at 1.25qt/lb, a little uncomfortably but not too bad. I could go as high as 1.5qt/lb...

I noticed some small bubbles appearing on top of the cider on day 4. On day 5, there was a bit more and some minor airlock activity. For the last two days however, it's been chugging along with a ton of fizzing and airlock activity, going on three days strong. However, it seems to be starting...

Maybe a 3 hour lag between pitching the yeast and adding the nutrient. I guess I'll wait a few more days and take a gravity reading to see if it's going down.

I tried my hand at hard cider for the first time this week. On Sunday, I poured 5 gallons (probably closer to 4.6 gallons) of unpasturized cider with no preservatives into a 5 gallon sanitized carboy (StarSan) and then added 5 campden tablets to it. I put a rubber stopper over the top to cover...

FG is 1.021. I'm going to bottle it tomorrow, but the beer out of the test jar tastes somewhat interesting. I wish I had added a bit more roasted malt in place of some of the pale though. It could have used a bit more roast, but it should still be a good beer, and hopefully will have an even...

Very well, here's the recipe 6 lbs pale LME 3 lbs pale 2 row (UK) 1 lb flaked barley .75 lb roasted barley .25 lb chocolate malt 1 oz. Bullion 8AA hops (bittering) WLP004 Irish Ale yeast (no starter, because I wasn't planning on a 1.065 OG) 8 oz Maltodextrin (guess I didn't need this did I?)...

I made the fatal mistake of letting my LHBS convert an all grain recipe to partial mash for me instead of doing the calcs myself. He gave me 6 lbs of LME plus 5 lbs of grain. That should have sent up a red flag right there. I didn't think much of it though, but now my dry stout with only 1 oz...