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find a hardware store with 1 1/8" ID tubing, get ~4 ft, sanitize it and stick it into the opening of the carboy. other end goes into a small bucket of sanitizing solution like iodophor or starsan. alternatively, you could fit a 1/2" ID piece of tubing over the center tube in the airlock and run...

take that IPA recipe you just made and increase the base fermentables (DME/LME) and make it an IIPA. dry hop as you see fit. edit: i always recommend starting with amarillo if you're new to dry hopping, they are great.

thanks guys!

i know people who use enameled cookware for brewing. just inspect for bubbling or cracks in the enamel from time to time and be prepared to replace it eventually

my airlock usually just smells like vodka. also, breezy is right. the refractometer is only useful before there's alcohol in the beer.

thanks for the tip eric! i hadn't considered that since partial chilling with a counterflow seems to be a bear, hop standing becomes more difficult when you graduate beyond an immersion chiller

+1 to the hop bursting recommendation, i am about to make a SMaSH pale ale with only .5oz cascade added at 60 minutes for a few IBU and to prevent boilovers, then 3oz at knockout for 30-45 minutes

to be honest the carb drops are your miracle fix. you should definitely go that route if at all possible. pouring out the beer and re-priming will carbonate your beer, but as a few others have pointed out you run into a number of sanitation and oxidation issues with that method. it's your...

+1 to the dry hop. definitely the way to go for the fruity/flowery notes that some hop varieties exhibit. another way to preserve as much hop aroma as possible is to utilize a hop stand, as described in this BYO article.

when adding priming sugar, you want to do it immediately before bottling. the best way to do that is to have a bottling bucket ready to pour your priming sugar solution into, then siphon the beer from your primary (skip the secondary for now) into that bucket, then transfer siphon to the...

i take hydrometer samples several times during fermentation and have never introduced an infection. taking your lid off for curiosity's sake isn't super dangerous, but you might get a face full of krausen if it's at all pressurized. it's never happened to me personally, but my wife got blasted...

well then it sounds like you know what you're doing! enjoy :mug:

mash the pilsner and 6 row between 150 and 158 for 60 minutes. I would try this with a large-ish pot in a warm oven. i had success with this method once. don't worry too much about the exactness of the mash temp, just try to hit somewhere in that range and you'll be good

fuzzy is right, but you'd need to measure the temperature of the fermenting beer to know if you're using enough ice/water to cool the ferment sufficiently. i would get a cheap indoor/outdoor thermometer and tape the "outdoor" probe to the side of the fermenter near the top level of the liquid if...

+1 on the shirt/towel wrap method. I personally just use one of those rope handled plastic utility buckets, insert carboy and fill with water to the level of the liquid in the fermenter. monitor the temperature of the water with a floating thermometer and add ice packs or ice as needed.

my kettle came used with a turkey fryer i found on craigslist. i'm sure turkey was fried in it at some point, but it was clean. i did a seafood boil once and it definitely got a little funky. I scoured the hell out of it for a while and used a bunch of powdered cookware cleaner. it never gave me...

looks like a pale ale with dealer's choice for hops. take your pick, and maybe take the opportunity to try single hopping if you're at all curious about the individual characteristics of any of those hop varieties you have. consider a 90 minute boil because of all that pilsner.

Hey everyone. I'm a longtime lurker and have been referencing the Home Brew Talk forums since I started brewing over a year ago. I make all grain beer mostly using a single infusion/batch sparge method, but I have experimented with decocting and fly sparging as well. Looking forward to being a...

I've been a longtime lurker, and Google directs me to this forum for pretty much every question I have.