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We're in the books! Introducing: Floored Malt Gose! A couple days ago, since it's warming up and getting more humid at the same time, I decided to vacuum seal my big sack of malt. Long story short, I dropped about 3kg on the ground and had to sweep it up. That became the base malt for this...

Fortunately, I can use my several-months-old flat homebrew to butter my popcorn because of all of the delicious diacetyl it's developed in the meantime.

Kegs don't shrink as you pour beer out of them. A five gallon batch in a five gallon keg will be filled less than halfway for half of its life. In that way, using a five gallon keg for 2.5 gallon batches is no problem. On the other hand, you'll have a ton of headspace when you carbonate the...

It's a Lambic blend. That might be part of it.

The other thing is that temperature is generally only a major issue for the first couple days of a ferment. Lagers may be a bit more finicky, but most flavor contributions (good or bad) from ale yeast are locked down in the first couple days of fermentation. After that point, you don't want to...

Or do a partial boil and top it off into the fermenter. I do that every brew day these days.

That's pretty normal.

It'd be 20-25 by now...

Yes. Cold temps and time help the CO2 to go into solution in the beer and not just hang out in the headspace. I find that a day is rarely enough to make a big difference, and it tends to improve for as long as a week before reaching maximum dissolution of the CO2. As a bonus, the beer spends...

Transferred to my 5 gallon carboy last night and needed to top-off with about 2.5 liters of water to avoid too much headspace. Originally I thought it was going to be closer to a liter, so I boiled 250g of yellow rock sugar (in the demerara/turbinado range) and added it. If I had known I'd be...

I really need to get a copy of the Water book and read it. Chemistry was the only subject in school that I completely failed to grasp, so I'm just using calculators and hoping for the best with my water profile these days... I've asked this question before, but either never gotten a clear...

The pellicles may have been caused by other microbes that rode in on the peppers or garlic in the past, and there were clear signs of CO2 (bubbles in the pepper mash) in those other sauce ferments along with the white pellicles they grew. This time I used peppers that had been hanging out in the...

Dude hasn't responded since the OP, but my assumption is that he's involved in the raffle, not the winner of the bag, so he can't really open it to check the grain. Otherwise, yeah, look at it, taste it, Congress mash it, brew with it. It's probably just 2-row, as @IslandLizard suggested, and...

Looks like I'm going to go the gallon route with the probiotic capsules. I used one cap in a lacto fermented hot sauce that's been sluggish. I originally used yakult probiotic yogurt drink - L. Casei Shirota I believe - which I've used as a lacto culture in hot sauce before, but it's been slow...

OP should probably send me an element for testing purposes, since I'm a homebrewer in China. Actually, he might do well to send me an entire eBIAB system built from his equipment. I promise I'll write a very thorough review. I'll even translate it into Chinese myself for domestic marketing purposes!

I think I've got this: Mash temps already pasteurize the wort, so no worries about bugs from there. Keeping under 170 F prevents DMS formation. If you don't let it form, you don't have to boil it off. No hops to isomerize. Saves time, which is part of my goal with this brew.

You're getting 40 bottles from your five gallon batches, which is eight bottles a gallon, whereas a gallon is the equivalent of about ten and a half 12 oz bottles. That means if you're actually getting five gallons in the fermenter (and not undershooting it because of incorrect volume markings...

Thanks. The table that showed Isovaleric acid approaching the tasting threshold in a copitch of lacto and sacc was worrisome and I wondered if adding strep thermophilus might push it over the edge, but I'll trust your experience on this. I appreciate the advice on the bacterial starter with...

Not to thread jack, but I've got a chest freezer/heat wire setup and I get nasty humidity in the freezer, such that I find spots of mold growing more often than I'd like to admit. Anyone have a good solution for preventing that humidity/condensation?

Many thanks on all counts. A couple further questions: Will the other bugs be likely to add anything to the brew at ale temps or would I be better off just using pure Plantarum? Any particular reason I should go no-boil other than saving time? You specifically noted not to go over 170; is...