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Fair enough; the bottom line is that if you plan on using any of these herbs, you need to do some research before hand. Batches of beer that are brewed with a couple of grams of sweet gale (which is usually how it is sold - by the gram) are in my opinion fairly benign, especially when compared...

Well, you might well add "Alcohol - poisonous if taken internally. Lethal in large doses." It is true that the herbs mentioned in this list demand a certain level of respect, and you should do some reseach before using them, but to just label them all as poisonous seems like puritanical...

Thank god, I think that would have been just terrible. regarding the mugwort, I would use it as a late boil addition as opposed to dry hopping or making a concentrated tea and adding that to the secondary. But I've never used it, so I don't actually know what is best. Of course, what with...

I would think twice about using wormwood in your beer; it really really tastes nasty and I'd hate to see an otherwise good beer rendered unpalatable. My suggestion would be to brew yourself a little wormwood tea, say a rounded tablespoon put in a teabag and steeped for five minutes. You'll...

Well, there are little to none if you don't over-indulge. I'd say limiting yourself to no more than three or four yarrow beers would be sensible, depending on the amount of yarrow used. Over-indulgence can result in the usual; really bad hangovers, coma, death - that sort of thing. Also, if...

Mr. Cheese, you psychonaut, you. I may be misremembering, but I think that salvia divinorum tastes like crap.

I mentioned wormwood as really more of an example of a bittering herb that also has antiseptic properties. I would be weary of using it in beer, as it is just about the most foul tasting thing you can imagine. I think that both rosemary and ginko have possibilities for use in beer, though I...

David42 is right to mention Buhner's "Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers"... It is a pretty good read and gives some insight into how the rise of civilisation and man's use of fermentation are inextricably linked together. I would be cautious using yarrow; it can indeed be pleasantly inebriating...

And you were going to siphon it into your secondary, not just pour it or something, right? At this point you want to avoid mixing any air into the beer... I think somebody already mentioned howtobrew.com, it would really be a good idea to do some reading there...

Don't add sugar to the secondary - that is added when you bottle (and I hope that you mean corn sugar, not table sugar, right? )

I must say that after my first reading of CP's description of AG in The Joy, I was confused as all hell about it... This forum has resolved a lot of that confusion, so much so that I'll be doing my first AG batch on Friday. So many thanks to all you, and may I never have to buy LME again. :mug:

Yeah, I totally wouldn't bother then... Although, in normal circumstances, I would say that a starter really really is a good idea.

Oh, and sorry PsiWulf, didn't mean to stray off topic.

Do you have a homebrew shop down in Willimina (I thought it was WillAmina, or am i confused?) or something? (I know that seems like a stupid question from somebody in MT, but I'm hoping to move back to either PDX or EUG sometime soon-ish, and should that ever come to pass, there's nothing I...

What kind of yeast are you using? If it is a smack pack or something, and you aren't brewing a really big ABV beer, I would just skip the starter this time...

Yeah, a five gal Better Bottle would be good. Personally, I prefer glass, but that might just be the thrill of knowing that whenever I handle my carboy I'm only one false move from disaster.

Not to be too ridiculous, but... I listen to old Noam Chomsky lectures. It's just something that happened by chance the first time I brewed, and I've done it every brew day since. I usually eventually get mad and/or a little drunk, and decide to switch to something soothing, like bela fleck...

Getting a secondary is definitely $17 (or so) well spent, and as cwestion mentioned, you can repitch the yeast from your primary after you rack, so in a way your secondary will pay for itself after just a few batches (it's important to use really convoluted logic so that you can justify buying...

Thank you FlyGuy, for this excellent post. The parts list is really helpful; I just finished putting mine together (I couldn't find a 5/8" stainless fender washer for the inside, but I found some wierd metric washer that was close to 5/8 and it ended up working fine). So if everything goes...

I really wish that I had read this thread earlier today... BEFORE I bought that f#@cking SS looking plastic braiding and went at it with a hack saw... Another $4 that I'll never get back. Home Depot has been nothing but a pain in the arse for me lately:mad: