Recent content by winnph

Every time I've skipped the agar plate isolation phase I've had unfortunate results, but ymmv.

My only successful wild yeast capture started similar to yours (except with dates), and then I streaked some agar plates and selected "normal" looking yeast colonies, then put each in a small starter on a stir plate. I've used that strain a few times now with great success.

Yeah, it's the third season for the plant, I'm going to transplant once the roots look uncomfortable. This last time it nowhere near filled the pot, and I repot it each season. I moved the other one to the ground this year, but it's growing a lot slower so far.

So I can't figure out what would only affect one of the shoots like this, though it looks like either a nutrient deficiency or overabundance. The only fertilizer I've used is Espoma Plant-tone, which I sprinkled on the soil surface as directed about a month ago. It's possible that I sprinkled it...

I just thought I'd share the response I got from Briess in case anyone else encounters this:

So I have been an all-grain brewer for close to a decade, and I feel like I've never seen such a large quantity of weird looking seeds/grain in a bag of grain I bought as this one I recently picked up at a LHBS. Tonight I opened the bag and poured it into the bucket/tub I use for storing 2-row...

Interesting, I didn't realize that. Luckily the seeds are enormous (like large lima beans or something), so I can't imagine many will slip through my brewing process. I googled it and found this interesting first-person story of someone who decided to eat a pawpaw seed to see how toxic they...

I appreciate the point that I'm not going to be able to replicate a "proper" oak cube, but that's not really what I'm going for here. I genuinely enjoy the idea of incorporating into my beers various ingredients I've harvested from the wild around me. For example, I'm probably going to try to...

Reviving a thread here because it was the first that came up when I searched for bay leaves. It's interesting that the second-to-last suggestion was for combining with vanilla, since that's what I'm planning to do. I'm doing a "late winter warmer" that I hope will be ready by early spring...

Thanks! Do you know whether I should dry the wood before baking it, if it's freshly cut from the tree? I think I'm going to brew something reminiscent of a Belgian tripel and use some red oak (mine is a northern red oak) and maple (mine is a Norway maple), in addition to a couple vanilla pods...

Well first I want to decide whether it's necessary. If it is necessary, I imagine a low temperature in the oven for a couple hours should do the trick.

Sounds good, let me know how it turns out! I'm trying to decide whether I can just use fresh (i.e., still wet with sap) wood chips and just dry them out during the toasting/browning process, or whether that will produce some kind of off flavor.

Did you use fresh wood or dried/cured wood?

I'll start by saying I've never used wood in a homebrew, but I have become something of an avid experimenter. It's been awhile since I brewed a beer that didn't have something bizarre going on in it (wild yeast, sour bugs, unusual fermentables, spices, etc.). On a recent trip to Mexico I...

Many water modification additives need to be measured pretty precisely, so my digital kitchen scale (which I use for grain and hops) just isn't up to the task. It only measures to the nearest full gram or 1/8 ounce (depending on which setting I use). Does anyone have recommendations for...