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I second that motion. That book is basically the modern Homebrewer's bible. There are a few techniques that are popular on these boards in recent years, but Charlie will give you everything you need to get started running.

I've never added fermentables to a beer after it entered the primary. The main drawback is that you lose the ability to take an OG and thus your FG loses a lot of relevance, making it not only impossible to get an accurate ABV, but difficult to tell when your beer is finished fermenting. What...

With any luck after enough time conditioning it will cake enough that you can pour without all the sediment in your bottle running into the glass.

If he's following the instructions that came with your kit, remember that the company's goal is to sell you as much of their product as possible, not to gaurentee you the best beer. So it's in there interest if your beer has a quicker turnaround time. ;3

Now I'm going to have a nightmare about my LHBS exploding in a firey, grainy, ball of death. Thanks for that. :P

All I can say is that a filtered mass market beer is a very different beast than a Homebrew with live yeast inside, so they're not exactly comparable. I don't have any kegging experience, I just know enough about it that you shouldn't use mass market beer with any number of ajuncts added in as...

Well, when you did your partial mash you did steep your grains in a bag right? If so the fact that it's a partial mash shouldnt affect you too greatly. The most likely thing that happened is that on bottling day when you moved your fermenter you shook up your yeast/hop trub that had settled to...

Well you probably used too much extract for a 1 gallon batch. Your OG of 1.102 OG is significantly above what's typical for an Old Ale (usually 1.060-1.090). Depending on how through your fermentation goes you'll quite possibly end up with something closer to a barely-wine than an Old Ale...

Chances are that at this point it's probably done, 1.080-1.045 is nothing to scoff at either for ABV. (about 4.6%) First, before you do anything else, do a taste test. It will probably just taste like flat (slightly sweet) beer. Which given that it's a holiday spice ale can be a desirable...

Well I know that ginger is like garlic, it's really pungent at first but when you cook it the flavor softens a lot.

I'm not sure they really save on time/effort since your putting a tab in every bottle as compared to boiling 5oz of sugar in 2 cups of water for 5 min and adding it to the bottling bucket. I guess the only real advantage is if you have a thing about yeast film in your beer and want to avoid...

Well I made it yesterday during the day (because it's supposed to rain the rest of the week and I do my boil outside). Like I said in the note, the wort wasn't super spicy and tasted great to my palate. (Granted in the process of peeling it I probably lost 6-8oz lol) Why would I have needed to...

So I went to my homebrew store planning on following one of the Ginger Ale recipes from this site, however when I got there I started playing around with the ingrediants pretty heavily and I want yall's opinions on the combo. (this is a copy/paste from the recipe I put together in Beersmith)...

If it has sugar in it the yeast will ferment it. Though IMO most of those fruit flavor packets taste crummy in regular water, let alone mixed into beer. If you want to do a fruit flavored beer, IMO do a secondary fermentation and add fruit to it.

A large factor is the size of your boil. I'd bet money your first boil had a larger volume than your second. You can throw in all the hops you want but a given volume of water will only dissolve AA so readily. I'd recommend http://www.beersmith.com/ it's a paid program but there's a 21 day...

doublepost sry!

I suppose it wouldn't be too difficult to setup a current to a heating element via a simple on/off switch, but that's basically how house fires start. The mechanisms that sit between your wall and the element are there as a safety to prevent the element from damaging itself and it's environment...

Usually when people dry hop, they transfer the beer from their primary fermenter after a week or two to a secondary fermenter (usually a carboy) where they add the dry hops and then leave it for another 2 weeks or so. From there when the beer is done they transfer it to a bottling bucket. The...

Good, now join the Cult of Revvy and ferment your beer in your primary for a full four weeks with us! Seriously though, after four weeks your beer is crystal clear and tastes delicious. When in doubt, wait it out. That and RDWAHAHB!

Buy a graduated cylinder with a nice wide base so that it stands straight. To read your hydrometer, simply fill the cylinder with your beer and drop they hydrometer in. You then read the line where the hydromiter breaks the surface of the water, simple as that. You NEED it because it gives...