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I must say, the Champagne yeast probably had an uphill battle for itself - being added, presumably dry or just rehydrated, to a high alcohol wort wouldn't give it much time to build up, multiply, and function properly. I've never heard of adding another dose of yeast like that after secondary...

Both the "banana" and "bubble gum"/Juicy Fruit flavor comes from isoamyl acetate and some of the other friendly esters -- Heat would help produce both. Colder will push it more phenolic (clove) while warmer will push towards esters (banana/gum). That's why you got strong clove but less of the...

Welcome to the obsession! I'm glad to hear such a success story on your first real go of it. Definitely took me a few batches to get it working. What'd you make?

Definitely try to maintain balance! I'm gonna guess their booster is some random fermentables, which will in turn drop the body and add booze without adding malt character, bitterness, sweetness, or anything else really. If you want to amp up your beer, do it in a judicious way: more extract...

I'm not sure what would happen if you REALLY overdid it, but this case should be fine. The yeast might not metabolize all the nitrogenous goodies in there, but you added about the perfect amount for a full batch of beer (7g, ish). When you pitch that in there you'll have plenty of nutrition for...

You'll probably get a lot of variety in answers for this! I just looked up the kit and it looks like the OG is 1.058 or so. Because of this, you'll have an easy time. Most of us here would recommend just leaving it in primary (1 stage) for several weeks until the gravity readings are constant...

I'm curious to see what you find out. It doesn't seem to weird to me to have a few infected and not others, though... during bottling we're shoving that wand into each bottle, introducing it to a cap, and leaving it a bit open to air at various points. If your taste recovers and it's still...

I think if you're going for something that will be familiar to our palates and you can share 'em with friends without getting confused looks, then that sounds good to me. 3 oz sounds like a great amount to make some delicious brown ale, especially if you're not doing it for an audience of BJCP...

Absolutely! No rush at all, it won't hurt it. Whenever you have the hydrometer then start taking readings, and once it's constant for a couple days then you can safely bottle it. A week or two conditioning will help ensure the yeast has cleared up any acetaldehyde or diacetyl lurking about.

This can come from some phenolic compounds, and I had a run-in with this as chlorophenols a while back. Look those up on here and you'll find all sorts of people dealing with it. Could it also be described as hospital-y or latex-like?

You might even lose a few more gravity points during conditioning, so right before adding priming sugar is the best time to measure it!

Depends on what you're brewing. If it's a typical beer under 1.060 or so, then racking it in for a week or two is great; I don't bother and leave it in the primary, as do many others, since that extra week or two isn't going to hurt anything. It's when you're grappling with lagers and high...

As the others said, definitely an artifact from beer bubbles rising. If they were little mold clumps they wouldn't look like that after being poured from a bottle. There's a million other great culprits for the weird flavor, though!

I know this is off-topic, but it's not the small amount of hops used but their use of reduced hop extracts. Even tiny bits are enough to get all skunky. It's the bittering agent that's been made inert that keeps those clear bottle beers happy in the sun. I've got a red capper and it's worked...

English ales often have a much lower carbonation level than other beers, IIRC. The vol number there is lower than some of the other styles as you'll see (compare to an American Pale Ale). These are historically mild, creamier beers so that doesn't sound too far off to me. Sorry I can't account...

I would also recommend using weight to measure the sugar; volume isn't especially consistent, but it also won't make the difference between beer and broken glass. Here's the real way to do it: http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html That way you can figure out the CO2 vols you want...

You only want O2 in there at the beginning -- at this point, shaking it has adverse affects. It's normal for gas activity to drop off pretty fast. For me, usually around day 2 or 3, there's a steep drop off as the yeast finishes up its primary fermentation then settles down for conditioning. In...

Chill haze, indeed! The polyphenols and remaining proteins in the brew form complexes and come out of solution at lower temperatures. They hide really well at room temp, but make themselves known after sitting in the fridge. You are right to look at the chilling; cold break is a great way to...

You've got to be careful with comparing to commercial breweries. They can often go much faster for a multitude of reasons. I'll typically go in primary for a few weeks until the gravity's not falling anymore. Bottle conditioning can take from 1 week in a very yeasty wheat beer to maybe 3...

With good aeration of the wort, minimized caramelizing of the extract (as OClairBrew mentioned), and the right temperature you should be fine. If it's sitting in too cold of a spot, you could be seeing the yeast flocculating out too fast and not finishing its job. That can be the problem with...