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Cheap suggestion, a plastic 55 gallon HPDE food grade water storage drum. Rain barrels (the type whole foods carries) are also usually food grade, although at twice the price. Check around your town for something like this.

Honey dissolves better into a warm liquid. Remember, this was just a sample cup of mead and it was about 65f.. A warmed up cup of mead dissolved the tablespoon of honey better. I then poured it over ice to taste it. Nothing scientific yet, this was still pre-metabisulfate & sorbate. Simple...

Legit, just to see how the beer is progressing. I usually will test sample at one week and then at two weeks, but I don't freak out if it isn't completely carbonated until week three.

Weird. No, never heard of paint being inside a beer keg. I'm assuming like you that someone probably stored paint in it. The good news is that you will probably be able to get it out if you disassemble the keg and use a chemical paint stripper. They're usually pretty caustic so use it in a well...

Beck.

Queue the stripper music.

Ok, the Super Kleer KC finings worked like a charm for clearing this melomel. If you ever use super kleer, be sure to follow the instructions on the back of the packet. Add the kietosol (sp?) to your must and stir gently for a few seconds, then wait a minimum of one hour to 24 hours (I waited an...

Sure. All extract beers are nothing new.Be sure that the majority of liquid extract that you use consists of base malt. That means, use pilsner or light malt extracts. I would suggest that you do perform a minimum boil though to sanitize the wort, even if the hops extract doesn't need it. I...

I made the jump on a two keg setup and I think it's worth it. Don't forget, you're going to need at least one regulator but it would probably be worth it to you to get a double regulator. That way, you can use one to carbonate and the other to serve and/or set different CO2 pressures for...

Your water losses will be a lot less than all grain. Since you have little to no grains to absorb fluids and the vigorous boil is a lot less with a tabletop batch vs. an outside gas burner batch, you'll just have to gauge what you water loss usually is. I think for grain absorption you're...

This is not always the case. Breweries do set their own wholesale price levels and can price themselves very high. My case in point is Hoppin' Frog, that recently released BORIS (their imperial stout) at $225 a sixtel wholesale. That's $225 for a little over five gallons. Out of that keg, you...

Yep, you probably rushed it. You sound like a newbie so that's totally understandable. I'm sure you're very eager to try your first beer. The more you brew, the more patient you'll become and the more you'll learn from your mistakes. First, airlock activity is not the best method of judging...

Yes, you can definitely test for mash conversion using iodine and a paper plate. Put a little mash water on the plate (like a teaspoon or so) with no grain in it and let it cool down to room temperature. I just fan it off with another paper plate to get it to cool off. Then, put a few drops of...

It should, although the haze is purely aesthetic. Although, pectin is a great baby laxative. Letting the cider age will probably help the flavor in the long run. You might consider racking it to a clean container with campden tablets (K Meta) and potassium sorbate to protect it from further...

Consider what you'd be doing in the sink. Are you going to be attaching a keg/bottle washer to it? Do you have it plumbed underneath for any sort of hose attachment (say, 3/4") or will you be attaching that to the threads of the spigot? Do you have a source of stainless spigots in your town...

I'd let it sit another week and then put a test bottle in the fridge to chill down cold for 24 hours before opening it. You can attempt to boost the carbonation with an additional quarter teaspoon of sugar per bottle but you really do run the risk of oxidizing the beer when you do it. Move...

That's also about average for me, right around 85%. I always ask for a double grind and my average boil off is right around a gallon.

3/4 cup to a 5 gallon batch

Steeping is when you just soak already roasted grains in warm water to extract the sugars. No actual mashing is required to extract the sugars and is therefore known as a "steep." A partial mash is an extract brew that requires you to mash some of the grains. This is common in beers that come...

I layer mix Marshall Zhukov and Good Gourd every fall during the holidays. It's the world's best black and tan. That woman's nuts. Who cares if you mix your beers?!?!