Search results

Just as I was packing the car to go to a brewday my wife tells me that a jar of yeast fell out of the fridge and smashed. Of course that jar was the wlp300 starter for today's brew. Wasn't able to get a new one so I took a 300ml sample off the keg and made a 1 liter starter. Pitched after 6...

Middle layer is mostly yeast. Lower layer is yeast and gunk. Good luck separating them, so just pitch the whole lot next time you brew. I don't think you'll notice any ill effects. Hop spiders, whirlpooling, and hop socks are all good ways to clean up the yeast though I'm not sure it makes...

I'm not familiar with that yeast, but everything looks in the right ball park to me. 8% lactose is great. 10% roasted malts is great, and the debittered black prinze will be less harsh than all roast barley. 10% crystal is a personal preference thing. I'd cap it at around 6-8% myself but this...

I disagree. Brewing is broken down into hot-side process and cold-side process, and both are almost completely independent of each other. Managing your cold side is enough of a challenge for many people. You gotta nail sanitation, yeast health, fermentation temps, and the whole...

Are the oats going to do anything in a steeping-grains arrangement? I thought you had to mash oats with a decent amount of base malt to get any fun out of them?

Yeah looks OK but 14% crystal malt is a bit too much for my liking. See what others say but this would be a show stopper for me. I'd normally go with about 5% in a stout.

Agree with the above. There is some magic that happens with these beers, and it's not predictable when it will happen. Just put them away in storage, keep brewing, try one every so often. These beers are such a treat when they are ready. I try to do a couple of big beers each year for long-term...

With an imperial stout, I would probably just brew it and see what happens. This is such a wide style range, you can miss or exceed your gravity by 20 points and still come out with an awesome beer. 35lb is a lot of grain though., and not an ideal first brew if you've never done all-grain...

Honestly it's easiest to brew to the limitations of your gear. But I think we've all been there before and can sympathise. One trick is to split the batch, put a couple of litres into a growler or demijohn so you have some headspace in the main fermentor. Then blend them back together in the...

I'm just gonna go ahead and quality inspect my first LODO batch while y'all argue over technicalities. TBH I can't pick the "it" flavour, but for a 10 day old lager this is gooooood. The sulfur is way reduced from where it was a few days ago (it needed to be) and obviously it needs to clarify...

I use a gen 1 grain father and find it makes excellent body beers. The recirculation should help a lot with maintaining the temperature you want. But, temp probes do break and that would be first on my list to check. Verify that the temp on the controller is correct. Otherwise, try mashing a...

I haven't visited the facebook page so I have no idea how they operate it. But fact remains, Brewie are moderating that discussion so by very definition it's not impartial. This doesn't mean it can't still be a good source of information, it just means that what you read has been potentially...

Anything less than 78c is good. I think that's like 170f. Warmer is better, all things being equal, because you don't have to wait as long to get to a boil. In terms of extraction it doesn't seem to matter so much. Over 78c you start extracting tannins which give astringent flavours, which you...

Yup 83 IBU is fairly high for a 1.064 brew. You'd normally target that kind of bitterness in an 8% beer, not a 6% beer. I would bring that back a bit, personally.

I've saved a LOT of money by harvesting yeast. I could easily buy a top end stainless conical with the savings from harvesting yeast. That said, you don't need a conical to harvest yeast. Harvesting from the bottom of a plastic bucket works just fine.

Honestly, you can make good beer and win awards in pretty much any kind of fermentor. With "makes good beer" ticked off, it comes down to price, convenience, safety, looks. Stainless cleans easier, looks cooler, easy to clean, oxygen impermeable, and if you get an infection it's easier to get...

There are a couple of other ways to go about this. Can you fit a blowoff tube instead of airlocks which take up less height? Or do what I do and add a piece of silicone tubing between the bung/grommet and the airlock so that you can position the airlock where you want it. Tape it to the side of...

I don't own one and have no skin in the game. I mean, sure, maybe it's a great product and there are 99% glowing reviews. Or maybe Brewie are just deleting the reviews they don't like on Facebook and those customers are coming here to have a voice. All I'm saying is that the official Facebook...

Thanks, that's actually really helpful. I think with all the required reading and new processes to learn I missed the part where an important purpose (primary purpose?) of aeration at pitching in a LODO brew was to remove the surplus sulfites. I just assumed that aeration was important, as it...

I've experienced much lower efficiency than normal in my LODO batches. So yeah, if you use the same grain bill I'd expect the OG to be different. Would it have been better to account for that in the recipe design and try to get the same OG? Sure. 2 degrees difference in mash temperature happens...