Recent content by Zero

Hell man, you just saved me $120, that means free beer for LIFE if you're ever in Columbus.

3rd batch of all grain is in the bottles! This one is a Bell's Amber clone (thread for that one is around here somewhere...) that I made for the 2nd time, but used a different yeast this time around. Anyway, here's the recipe: 81.8 9.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) 9.1 1.00 lbs. Crystal 90L...

Ok I just bottled a batch, and I had my wife cap my bottles so she could see what a pain it is, therefore she suggested I go ahead and buy the supplies to keg from now on. :rockin: This will be my initial foray into kegging, so I'm looking for a good setup. I have my eye on this one, but...

So if I understand correctly, as a general rule, hops are used in two ways: Bittering (boiled in the wort for a long time), and Aroma (added to the wort near the end of the boil) What is the idea behind dry hopping? I have a recipe that calls for pellets for the majority of the boil, but...

I used Wyeast 1272 American Ale 2. I started it around 63 degrees, but it didnt really want to start fermenting, so I kept it closer to 70 for the rest of the activity.

Ok well here's the results from mine. Tasting notes are the same, but I'm picking up a definite banana ester aroma that I didn't get before, but it's more noticeable out of a mug than it is from the bottle. Side by side comparison taste is virtually identical to Bell's Amber. Color is...

I made this recipe, but substituted the yeast. I used the Wyeast 1272 American Ale II, as I liked the flavor profile on their website. I had a good 36 hour lag before it finally took off with this yeast. I racked it off the krausen after 2 weeks into a secondary for another week to clear up...

Gotta say the Unibroue Trois Pistoles is making a lot of appearances in my mug lately.

Got my first all-grain recipe in the primary, and it's off with a whimper thus far. OG was 1.053, which was pretty close to the 1.056 I was shooting for. I used a Wyeast 1272 American Ale 2 activator pack. The smack pack didn't expand like the one on my previous patch, but reading here...

Yeah I used the calculator that you linked, but it only suggested the strike water temp for the mash, not the temp for the sparge. Do you usually anticipate an absorption loss from the grains during the sparge as well, or are they considered to be completely saturated from the mash process...

What's a good temp for the sparge water to hit before a batch sparge? I'm doing a single in fusion mash in a rectangular cooler MLT. Are you not as concerned about a temp drop, since the grain is alread hot from the mash?

Is a 6 gallon Better Bottle going to have enough headspace for a 5 gallon wort, when used as a primary?

For sparge water temp, you said you "shoot for around 178º." Is that the rest temp, or the water temp before you add it to the MLT? For a single infusion/batch sparge, once the sparge water is added, do you give it a stir, vorlauf, and drain away, or should it sit a few minutes?

It was the clone recipe from the "clone brews" book. Don't have it in front of me at the moment. Admittedly, I did forget to toast the oatmeal first so I'm sure that's a factor. Another strange thing about that batch....I got really inconsistent carbonation. I let them sit for 2 months at...

Brewed my second batch a while back, a nice Sam Smith's oatmeal stout clone. While it's similar to the commercial product, it's missing something. Namely, the malty sweetness is more pronounced than the store-bought beer, which I attribute to possibly too much hops, but the part I can't figure...