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I store them loose as well, and flip them. I wonder if I've not been getting "the good ones" (whatever they are made from) or if I have unreasonable expectations. I've run a lot of beer through those bottles.

I've never had one punch through on my ez-cap bottles. The only problems I have had is with gaskets. My advice is to go ahead and buy replacements and be liberal replacing any that look like they have taken too much of a set. In hindsight, I hardly ever reclose a bottle. I bought the ones I...

@Bramling Cross what about cold break? Into the fermenter, filtered out some way, or do you take the efficiency hit and leave it all in the kettle?

This thread is going to force me to finally buy a meter...

When you think about it, it's pretty amazing that this whole beer thing works at all. Truly a miracle.

I agree with everything you said here, except for the green beer part, obviously. My point is that this line of thinking might be a bridge between a brewing tradition that embraced acid additions and long maturation times and one that embraced fast, acid-producing yeast. Our man @Bramling Cross...

I accidentally produced another data point on the behavior of this yeast, and I think I have become confident that pitch rate plays a significant role in ester profile. Due to discovering at the last minute that 1 of 2 old packs in the refrigerator was soft (and therefore not sealed), I pitched...

If you live in the sunny south, grits can be bought in bulk from various places for well under the price of malt, especially considering the cost of shipping. If you have access to a few hundred square feet of ground that isn't in the shade, enough dent corn to brew for years is trivially easy...

Google isn't cooperating with me, so I can't post a picture, but I know there was kind of a standard pattern ceramic mug used in England right before glass became cheap enough for drinking beer. They were thin and straight, and glazed with pale pastel colors. They exist more only as antiques. I...

I get it, and I also get the connection with the phenomenon of English ale yeasts lowering pH significantly at the beginning of fermentation. I have never pitched a lager yeast, and I am a rank amateur compared to many on these forums, but I have produced some amazingly clear, crisp ales in...

Carbonic acid, man. It's the unstated assumption of brewing. It's a huge needle mover as far as taste. It should be listed as an ingredient in every recipe.

I think there's an element of subtraction in flavor presentation as well. I'm not an IPA guy, but with the spicy flavors, particularly, it seems like early additions work better. I think some of this might be due to stripping the resinous flavors out with a longer boil. Note that many of these...

I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, but what does having a lower pH at the end of the boil do VS a higher pH at the end of the boil?

I would totally brew this. Yeast is usually a guess on these old recipes--like you, I would go with something with some character. You won't get much anyway, due to the low OG. I would keep the hops the way they are. This is a watery little guy. Any late hops will totally change the character...

I don't have a photo, but I have both scalded chickens and rendered lard in mine. The progression from scalding chickens to brewing is the gom jabbar of cleaning. Everyone should try it once.

Excellent work, @Bramling Cross. Thank you for sharing this.

Most yeast stains taste bad. I think it's easy to confuse flavor improvement due to yeast activity and flavor improvement due to yeast settling out completely, especially for newer brewers. The latter happens fast at fridge temps with ale yeast. The former probably stops completely when you drop...

Struggling with the sin of covetousness over that beer engine. I also serve a lot of English ales in cornies. I use a picnic tap with about 3 inches of line and I rigged a liquid propane regulator so I can run as little as 1psi reliably. Like you, I find I prefer about 1.2-1.3 volumes. It's not...

What is burning and then getting stuck in the valve? All vegetable matter should be removed from the kettle when you pull your bag.

I just grabbed the first link. They come in all sizes.... Wait. You are looking to mash 30 gallons? That's a big batch, even if you are not sparging.