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All AG specs and such aside, when a brew tastes progressively worse the longer it stays in a carboy or bottle, I gotta call infection. I say this based on a friend's brew that went all wrong. It started out tasting great and the longer it sat in the bottles the worse it became (over a five...

I was considering adding some Flaked Barley to my latest brew to increase the creaminess, mouth feel and head retention. I know from having read JP's, How To Brew that a protein rest for grists consisting of 25% or more of such a grain would be beneficial. Would adding my 5-10% of Flaked...

Ahhh Palmer's, How To Brew. If you haven't read it or looked at the website, do so. It's all right there for the taking! http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/index.html

I know this may fall on deaf ears and that not everyone wants to spend a vast amount of time formulating recipes etc. etc.... but you really will benefit from getting the heck away from brewing with kits and getting into really crafting your own beer. You can have all the benefits of batch size...

"Are you sure about this? I was under the impression that it was not mouthfeel because of a lack of conversion but because the higher temps created more unfermentable types of sugar (is dextrins the term?). " Higher temps favour Alpha amylase and denature beta amylase. Alpha amylase...

pjj2ba NOW THAT'S WHAT I CONSIDER AN ANSWER!!!! Fantastic response, thanks so much.

Agreed... I won't be using distilled water and had no intention I was just citing it as it appeared that it plus base malt would still result in a mash pH of the original distilled water. I was under the impression from that info that maybe base malt was not affecting the pH in any way. I...

Yup, read JP's How To Brew and I'v read my water report and looked at Ca and Mg concentrations versus my pH and done the requisite calcs. Maybe they're off... way off. I know water pH has nothing to do with mash pH other than your water pH being the starting point. Considering distilled water...

I've read my local water report and I see that my water pH is 6.7. I would like to brew an all-grain Koelsch pale ale. which will be made with around 85-90% base malts (Pale and Carapils and maybe some Munich). Aye carumba, to lower my mash pH it looks as though I will have to add a load of...

The best response to a situation like this one where you are totally unhappy with a local MB (short of firebombing :D ) is to support another that you like. There are varying palates out there and not everyone will share your opinion. I too have found a local MB that I absolutely despise yet...

Never worry so early on in the process. Time will probably cure this ill. Carbonation and fermentation can at times be a little mysterious. One day it will be watery and with no bubbles at all and the next it can be pure foam. Generally I like to wait two to three weeks to get a real idea of how...

I must say that if gratitude isn't being shown by guests then they generally don't get an invite again. When folks are coming over to drink my beer they usually bring something in the way of snacks or interesting imports for me to try. You know they're good peeps when they do that after you tell...

Want to make a cheap false bottom MLT? (you can possibly convert your cooler to dot he same). Take a 5 Gal food grade pale and drill a hole in it as close to the bottom of the pale and fit a spigot in that hole. A metal spigot would be best rather than the one pictured here. Take a Pot...

As a general rule, leave even quick fermenting beers at least two weeks before bottling. A bubble every 90 seconds is still lots of activity and will probably persist another seven days. All that gas would therefore be trapped if you were to bottle right now and you would end up with bottles of...

I have been looking for a distinct flavour I've found in a couple of commercial brews and I just can't place it. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I'm Canadian (note the spelling of flavour) most of the Americans out there won't know the two beers I'm going to mention. Alexander Keith's IPA...

And if the decimal points confuse you like they do me, work in GUs or simply knock off the 1.0 and do like Brewsmith said. 1.055 = 55 GU * 0.25 = 13.75 or 1.01375

Thanks DeathBrewer, all hail the dark lord. :rockin: A tenth of a soda can. That seems to make sense from looking at them. Now how much of the contents would you estimate is yeast (solids)?

Hmm. Seems like we're getting nowhere quick here. Okay, how about this: Can one of you who brew with White Labs yeast go look at the vial and see if there's a fluid measurement on there and then estimate how much of that vial is yeast and how much is liquid? A teaspoon? A tablespoon? Those...

I do believe you can over pitch from what I've read in Daniels' Designing Great Beer. If you over pitch the yeast can work through the wort too fast and go dormant before being given the chance to clean up their by-product. I think you would really have to pitch a lot of yeast to do that though.

I've rinsed and stored my yeast and they are all happy and clean in their jar in my fridge. I'll be brewing again in a week or so and I'm wondering how much yeast I should pitch. Sure, I could pitch the whole she-bang but I'd like to get a few batches out of the considerable amount that I have...