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I think you'll find this being a very palate-sensitive question. For me, I like a mild detection of the rye malt "spiciness" and a hint of the slippery mouthfeel, so I usually use it in the range of 9-10% of the grain bill. I've made some recipes in the 20% range and I find it too overpowering.

@kylexc can you elaborate on this step you mentioned with your starter? I'm assuming this was just the process of making starter wort to store. You didn't add the yeast, then put it under high temperature and high pressure, did you?

Mine's all warped, too. However, it seems to have caused me no problems with efficiency, stuck mash, or temperature stability. So I just ignore how it looks!

Recirculating too fast and compacting your grain bed is going to be a hit to efficiency. Other thoughts: 1. You have a fair amount of wheat and flaked grains in your bill. I didn't see rice hulls listed. With that grain bill, I typically would use around 3 oz of rice hulls. Helps avoid the...

This is what @Bobby_M was trying to point out. This is a flow restriction valve. If it's straight up and down (vertical) there is no restriction and you will be recirculating way too fast and likely get your grain bed compacted. If it's horizontal, it's completely closed and you'll get no...

You mentioned several successful batches before these two recent ones. Do you still have ispindel data from the successful ones? If they started out with 1.050 or something, then the problem isn't your yeast or starter at all- the problem is in your mash/sparge process somehow giving you...

I like the second description of your beer, sounds like something I've been trying to make (I'm calling it Black Zima). I also think the Black kolsch thing sounds interesting, but to me that's a different beer. Kolsch in my mind is very "dainty" - nice malt taste, but clean; a bit of yeast...

I had always thought that if I'd under pitched or had too challenging of a ferment for the yeast I would have trouble starting and/or slower fermentation rate at the start. Since this one started fine, I thought I was in the clear. I guess there's more than one way for yeast to show you you've...

The FG number of 1.005 was from my refractometer (corrected based on the OG).

I couldn't take it any more and close transferred it to a keg to cold crash tonight. I was worried maybe there was an infection. But I smelled no off aromas and didn't taste anything funny. Of course taste was hard to assess since the beer had no carbonation and was 75F.

It was a slightly smaller batch, 4 gallons into fermentor vs my typical 5.5 gal. One pouch of fresh WLP yeast (best before 3/25/2025, and pitched on 12/19/2024). No starter, probably could've used one since I was fermenting pretty cold, but I was expecting a smaller volume into fermentor than...

I'm on Day 20 post yeast pitch on a Kolsch. I started cold, around 56f, as I've had good luck with that before. After about a week, it was looking like things were finished, but as I kept waiting for my Tilt to show 2-3 days of flat SG, it just keeps slowly dropping. I was initially thinking...

I used to order from Label Peelers occasionally sacks of grain. The grain was cheap and shipping somewhat reasonable. But now I buy all my stuff from the last remaining homebrew shop in the Detroit area. Gotta keep them alive as long as possible! They have great prices on sacks of grain, but...

What ratio did you use between oxiclean and water? I don't have the sight glass, but now you've got me worried what's inside my stainless recirc tube that I can't see!

Depends on your "refractometer". When I used the small handheld one, there was that little clear plastic bit that closed down and squished the wort sample flat before doing the reading. Seems like solids would not play a big factor. I use a Milwaukee digital refractometer now, and that one...

I can't read Portuguese (?) so I'm not sure what you're doing with those non-dry hop additions. Is that "whirlpool 20 minutes" or "add with 20 minutes left in the boil"? In either case, I think you're gonna miss not having a full boil duration bittering addition. I like the Chinook in a red rye...

First thing that comes to mind (other than the over carbonation) is hop debris in your liquid keg post. That used to happen to me before I had a good dry hop and transfer regimen. You could de pressurize and remove the leg post to see if debris inside the spring. Next thing that comes to mind...

Last beer I used it in looks like 2023 crop (I buy most of my hops from YVH). That IPA was a menagerie of different hops, 17 oz total with 2023 Galaxy being 1 oz at at 0 min, and 2 oz out of total 5 oz in dry hops. That beer was fantastic as usual (literally my favorite beer). I didn't have...

Not exactly answering your question, but like others have said, my preference tends to shift over time. I learned that buying hops by the pound is dumb for me. This year's favorite gets eclipsed by next year's favorite, and next thing you know I have over half a pound of something that's 3+...

I use Red-X to get the orange color without the caramel flavor. I'll use it in beers where I want some caramel malt flavor contribution, but don't want to be overwhelmed. My palate has been mentally scarred from overdoing the caramel malts, so I'll add what I think I can tolerate from the make...