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Lactobacillus takes about 6 months to fully develop the sourness in the finished beer. If you want it quicker than that you can cheat and add lactic acid, about 1 oz will pucker up a 5 gal batch nicely. Or do the sour mash.

EEK with that water I would just go with RO and add calcium chloride or gypsum to get the required calcium, and adjust with acid or sodium bicarbonate to get the right mash pH. Any post-water-softener water is unsuitable for brewing due to the high sodium level. The beer will taste "salty", and...

Don't overthink it too much. Your first goal should be to get calcium over 50ppm in the wort for the yeast so it will flocculate properly. In this beer you would want to use CaCl2. With that fixed, your second goal is to get the mash pH in the proper range of 5.2-5.6 for proper conversion and to...

One related side note -- if you happen to end up with a beer with tannins in it, fining it with PolyClar and racking after a few days will remove the tannins.

I believe 90% of people polled at NHC would agree that BN should not be considered as a club, and I agree with them. However the rules are the rules, and whether they change them for next year is up to the AHA governing committee to decide, with input from its members. That said, if you care...

As the yeast freeze, ice crystals form that pierce the cell walls. As it warms up the now dead cells will leak out their contents, releasing enzymes which will cause any cells that survive to cease fermentation. In short, it's toast. Toss it, do another batch of cider as a new starter and try...

I stabilize and fine at the same time, on the third racking, and after it drops clear then I will rack again and pull samples to play with acid adjustments, tannin adjustments, etc. to taste. Once you decide what adjustments you want you can add about 2/3 of the amount you think you will need...

Looks like yeast. I've noticed a ring form like that when the bubbles cause a bit of spray up the sides of the bottle / carboy, and the yeast then dries on the surface of the fermenter. I won't say it's impossible for wild stuff to grow in apple juice (it can), but due to the low pH and low...

I always backsweeten and stabilize at the same time. You should wait a few days before bottling just to be sure you didn't mis-count the amount of sulfites in a drunk'n stupor :tank: but otherwise there isn't any reason to wait, the sulfites will stop fermentation immediately.

Most esters are produced in the first 72 hours, so it will be a bit fruity, but 75 degrees isn't hot enough to cause any real problems. The beer should still be very drinkable.

Very sorry to hear this. As a fellow brewer, as a tribute to Ben, I will dedicate my next brew to him and raise a toast in his honor.

While it is possible your infection is from the starter I would find it highly unlikely, as the pH and high concentration of yeast cells in a starter make it very difficult for any baddies to grow in such a hostile environment. I would examine your whole process to look for potential issues...

Sounds like the pH is far too low for it to ferment. To pull a feat like hard lemonade off, you really need to start at a pH around 3.5, keep it above 3 until it's done fermenting and then add the rest of the lemon juice. It's also possible your juice has potassium sorbate in it -- if it does...

Prost! Homebrewers rule :D

Hops for breakfast!!

Wow that would be awesomeness. I'll have to dig through my cellar to see what I can find to offer up worthy in trade for such a fine specimen.

Yeah that is right I just posted : "paulthenurse was right" You may go ahead and gloat. :D

Fast ferment test results are in.. still stuck at 1.056. So I have reached the attenuation limit of the wort composition. To dry this beer out I plan to do a 1.060 wort mashed overnight at 145, and I'll add 100 points worth of sugar to push it to 1.160 OG equivalent doing the Cali Ale + WLP099...

I believe Ballast Point uses WLP001 for this beer.

It's time to re-slant my library (some of my slants are well over a year old at this point, and I have some two year old expired yeast vials I got cheap that I need to slant as well). I went to Home Depot yesterday and picked up some boards to build vial racks to incubate the old slants with...