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Welcome to brewing, I'll do my best to answer these. 1. No, do not use a carboy as a primary fermenter. There are brewing buckets with drilled gasket holes for using an airlock. You could alternatively drill and gasket yourself. Leaving the lid kind of on is a bad idea and could very well ruin...

I just started a 1 gal of strawberry last night, I used 4lb of frozen then thawed crushed berries and still had to add water. Strawberry doesn't offer up much juice, you'll need to get some volume from somewhere, either the tap or grape juice. Used nearly 3lb of sugar, the berries were a bit tart.

I have never broken a bottle with my bench capper, one of my better Homebrew investments. I generally have two bottle types, the standard height and the short 12oz (woodchuck cider, Founders beer bottles). I have a small block of wood to use for the shorter bottles that bring it to the same...

I've always done a secondary, from my first Irish red kit to mid level recipe ipa. I have the siphon hose at the bottom of the carboy, eliminates splashing. Very first beer was near crystal clear and didn't have any oxidation problems. I also like to be able to see when beer has cleared, can't...

The beers I've made before generally hit the target gravity, more my assumption that it wasn't done fermenting yet. I come from wine making, so when something isn't quite right I fall back on just let it age. The stout is the only one that has been inconsistent from bottle to bottle. I've also...

I used s-04, fermentation has been a solid 65f for 9 days as of today. I was at 1.020 a week from brew day. Starting grav 1.045 I guess I'll just be more careful with bottle cleaning and sanitizing. I'm usually very thorough, must have dropped the ball on the last stout. Maybe letting...

Hadn't considered that, I'll pay extra close attention at bottling. Would you recommend bottling as soon as the gravity hits target?

Thanks for responding. The last time I made a stout about 1 in 5 bottles just wasn't as good as the others. It was the most inconsistent beer I've made. Assumed it was an aging problem but I guess not. Any ideas on better consitency? Other than kegging? Which I do hope to have a setup by the end...

I have an Irish stout almost ready to go to secondary. I would like to bulk age it for at least 1 but maybe as much as 3 months. The longest I've bulked is 2 weeks before bottling but I want this one to be more consistent. My biggest concern is bottle carbing. I'm not setup yet for kegging. I...

Interesting recipe and hope it turns out. I did mine for the sake of trying it and was surprised it actually turned out drinkable. I still only brew wine 12-14% but the hitting 18 was fun :) and I brew for fun

Yeah, I didn't want it to get stuck. Also wanted the yeast to stay healthy and not get too stressed. When doing high abv it's important to keep the fermentation slow. It's going to have some off flavors regardless, but anything you can do to help it out is a good idea. Also, I racked the wine...

I've gotten grape juice up to 18%. I stated with enough sugar to get to 14% and added energizer and nutrient. Once it started to slow I added more sugar and yeast nutrient. I got it to 18% with sugar left and had a very hard wine. I used lalvin ec-1118 Of note, it will take a long time for it...

I've hit 18% with incremental sugar and nutrient adding on a grape wine. Took a full year before it was drinkable, and definitely not one of my best wines. And there's no way a yeast can survive to 49% let alone 100%. Thats why distilleries exist, to push the abv up to those numbers. Make...

New update, just racked (third time) and the final reading is 1.002, 14% abv. It has cleared up nicely, and honestly tastes amazing. I've had store bought blueberry that is worse than this, can hardly tell it's a young wine. Very happy with it and can hardly wait till next year to do a 5 gal...

As long as the sugar is completely dissolved and stirred up well, the reading is immediate.

There is some science, get a hydrometer. Without knowing the specific gravity before and after fermentation, you can't know what the alcohol content is. Wine will always taste 'boozy' when coming from the primary. It takes time for the alcohol to mellow and balance out in flavor. Just keep an...

I'll give that a try, thanks I racked to a clean glass today, gravity is at 1.03 currently 10% abv. Starting to clear up and the color looks great. Decided to use the yeast to make a batch of skeeter pee. Modified the recipe and added a couple blueberry pomegranate juice concentrates for...

Thanks, it's still going well. Probably going to rack it off to a new bottle in a couple days. Considering using the yeast cake to make a batch of skeeter pee. I've never made that either but a blueberry hinted lemon wine sounds good to me

I've been thinking about if might have been nickel painted, less than $20 and manufactured in China. I wouldn't be surprised to find it only spray coated and not plated. A pic would certainly help to see how it changed in appearance tho.

Does the paint mixer feel rough? If so the plaiting definitely came off, not sure if you can save it. Others may have an idea. With any brewing always use food grade plastic or stainless steel.