Recent content by Xand

Just used 4oz soaked in vodka in an oatmeal milk stout. Let them sit in the booze for maybe 4-5 days, which made a pretty bitter, baking cocoa flavored tincture, before dumping the whole thing in the beer. I let the beer sit on the nibs for maybe another 4-5 days before I kegged it. Gotta...

Wait, what is this? I've had this pop up on a couple batches of beer recently. I assumed it was a mold infection due to racking in my basement (which is a little humid) and the musty smell it produces. Seems to funk the beer up a bit and thus has caused a couple dumpers, sadly :(

More or less you've got it, but I think you'll want some roasted barley in there to get that red tinge to it. And this is secondhand, but someone from HR says they verified with the brewer that they use 1762 in the IRA: http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=&t=15798 They...

I made one about a month and a half ago that I think turned out well. It's been a while since I've had the actual beer as I haven't lived in Portland for 4+ months, but it had the drinkability and characteristic balance of smoothness/hoppiness that I remember. I cobbled the recipe together from...

Good news Gnar. After finally getting some more sanitizer I was able to take a sample today after what would be a week in primary and 2 weeks in secondary and it seems like it's come back to drinkability. I'm not sure where the sourness I was getting came from, but while it still has some...

Interesting Clifton, thanks for the response. I used Indian Summer, which I believe does have ascorbic acid. Have you encountered that being an issue before? What makes me think it's an infection is that I tried it after 3-4 days when it was at around 1.03 SG and it was sweet - almost...

So it would appear that I've struck by the accursed I-word, i.e. the bane of the newbie (and experienced brewer) and have cultured my very first infected batch. I took a reading of my graff about 5 days after fermentation to find that it still had a little ways to go (it was at 1.03) but...

I think boiling would explode your bottles. Think of the steam coming out of a teapot that sounds the whistle and picture that pressure on top of the already present carbonation... BOOM!

Good deal, that's what I thought. Can't you pasteurize at a lower heat if you leave the bottles in longer? The apfelwein is going to be ~10% ABV so I don't want to push it so close to its boiling point if I can get the job done at 170 or 180. Also, does anyone have any more info or...

This is fantastic info. It seems like this mainly pertains to standard cider, though, so I want to clarify: will this work fine with apfelwein that's been fermented very dry (around 1 or lower). I am bottling a batch this weekend and, for a variety of reasons, wasn't able to halt it at a...

Good info GinKings, thanks!

Interesting. After two weeks mine was no longer bubbling. It still tasted pretty sweet so I let it keep going and tried it again a week later. It had dropped from about 1.006 to 1.002 and was noticeably less sweet. I'll be testing it again next week, but it's so low that I think it should be...

Just finished a batch similar to this except with a few tweaks. I used what instead, left out the lactose and forgot to get the maltodextrin, so my final list looks like this: 1.5 lbs wheat DME 1 lb Amber DME 1/2 lb Crystal 120 1/2 lb honey malt 2 oz torrified wheat .5 oz Willamette...

Hi everyone, first post on the forums but I've been lurking for a while. I have a batch of Edwort's apfelwein fermenting, but I'm really curious to try graff as well (and I'm new, so I'm still waiting for most of my batches and am thus very antsy!). It sounds like the original recipe is a...