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Everything I've read says to NOT do a starter w/ dry yeast or you will hurt the yeast more than help it...Where are people getting this info from?

I also had a problem of my beer tasting great until I bottled it and then within 2-3 weeks a strong off flavor emerged. Many of my friends have also encountered this same off flavor problem. Someone at Wyeast or White labs (can't remember which company it was) told me that wild yeast can...

Trying some partial mash recipes are a great way to get into All Grain without investing in much more equipment.

Maybe try to spray some sanitizer around the lid to make sure the lid o-ring is sealed properly? Sometimes at low psi like that my lids start to leak gas until I turn up the psi back up to about 15 and reseat the lid again. I would assume this isn't the problem since you would have emptied the...

I just bought some more 1 gal Brooklyn kits for only $30 each! Excited to brew them up this weekend! I didn't see any on their website, but you can call or email them for availability. http://www.urbansunshine.com

With that much dextrose in the recipe you will have a beer that is light in body and taste but will still have decent alcohol levels. That could be what you are tasting. Time might mellow things out also. Next time, using all extract instead of dextrose might help to give the beer better flavor.

People have left their beer in the primary for months and it didn't harm anything. The beer might still be a little "green" and some things should mellow out over the course of the next few weeks. Sometimes high temps can cause fusel alcohols to come out but your temp sounds good if 18C equals...

Update: I didn't have good luck with the coin trick, I couldn't get them to stay put when clamping down the lid. I just added some keg lube to the o-ring and just moved around until it seemed to seal better. I got it to seal good enough to fill some bottles. But now I'm scared to lager in the...

This seems like a good idea I can try for now. The O rings are brand new and I have noticed when I am trying to seat the lid under pressure I have to wiggle the lid around quite a bit until it seals good. Besides trying some keg lube or those other softer type of rings I'm sure what else I could...

I have noticed my corny keg lids sometimes start to leak gas at lower a psi. This usually happens when I am about to fill bottles from a keg and have turned down the psi to about 2-4. Any ideas of why this is happening and what to do about it?

When I first came across the pitching rates you have found, I too was scared into thinking that if I don't follow the Mr.Malty calculator rates than my beer will be ruined by off flavors and I remember running back up to my LHBS to get another 2nd smack pack. Will pitching more yeast produce a...

This is also sound advice.

Many people these days are saying you need more yeast than what the yeast companies recommend and so many factors are involved it's hard to know which numbers to go by. It is known that the more yeast you pitch the less off flavors the yeast produce since they will reproduce less. Honestly, as...

Sometime in the mid 90's I had tasted my brother in law's homebrew and instantly knew it was better than the bud or whatever crappy beer I could get someone to buy me (I was only about 15-16 at the time). Around 2003 I brewed my first 5 gal extract batch with his help and the Joy Of Homebrewing...

Keezer @ home w/ 10lb tank

Stuff

For better taste, I would also recommend only brewing a 5 gal batch instead of 6 gallons like the instructions say. This will help you achieve a higher abv also. The Cooper's kit plus a 3.3lb can of LME OR a 3lb bag of DME plus about 4-8 oz corn sugar should get you to about 5.5%. You could also...

You could also see if your local brew shop carries priming tabs or conditioning tabs.

Are you adding in any of the bittering hops at 60min? You won't get a lot of bitterness from the hops unless they are boiled for 60-45 min.

Those kits are high in unfermentable sugars since they are designed to be paired up with something that is very fermentable like more LME, DME or corn or table sugar. That's not to say using two cans of the same kit still won't turn out well, your abv might just be a little lower and your FG a...