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My guess is that my process sucks and O2 gets in there while I'm setting up the keg. If I drink it in a few days, the taste stays pretty good, but mine tend to get stale fairly quickly. YMMV. As far as bottling, I'm a heretic. 1/2 tsp plain white sugar goes in per 12oz bottle, beer follows...

Yeah, I agree that this doesn't look like something that would be easy to force carb with. I have a more basic one of these and in order to force carb I cold crash, connect the CO2, pump up the pressure to 30psi, and then use the shake method to carb up the beer. I found if I can just leave it...

What kind of grain/hop bill you got going there?

One thing I learned is that she does suggest a bit more mash water than needed. My notes have 1/4 gallon per pound of grain and the rest of the water used to sparge. I also target the low end of mash temps, put it in a 170 degree oven for an hour, drain into strainer over my boil pot, then fly...

I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. I have the hardcover version and constantly go back to it over many other brewing books I have, mostly because of the “make it your own” section of each style recipe for ideas to try. If you like IPAs, try either the DIPA or the Very Good IPA. Both are wonderful

I haven’t seen it mentioned in this thread, but if you are a single gallon brewer and don’t have Emma Christensen’s “Brew Better Beer” book, do yourself a favor and pick it up. It has recipes for all the major styles in both 1 gallon and 5 gallon increments, and I have yet to find a bad one...

I almost always dry hop immediately because I’m lazy. Only issue is if you have a crazy yeast like Lutra that blows off like crazy. Otherwise I haven’t had any issues. Just have to give the fermenter a shake after a few days to get any that stuck to the side. Probably have 10 brews I’ve done...

The only downside is the good beer you brew you only have 9-12 of instead of 50. My DIPA I just brewed was gone within a week, so now I’m making a double batch this weekend

I haven't gone into NB in a while, but I have gone to Midwest (their sister store) recently and while there are help wanted posters everywhere, the last two times I've gone there, there were 2-3 guys behind the desk not really doing anything (once they didn't even say hello or ask if I needed...

Got mine on Saturday and made an Oktoberfest that night. Got it direct and it seems I got one of the newer versions, with a different false bottom and no side holes. Made some silly mistakes along the way, but I can tell I’m going to like it. Gonna make a 2.5 gal batch of a DIPA this weekend to see

First taste of my California common during bottling was delicious. No off flavors or esters, just a really clean beer. I’ll let it condition for a week, then throw it into the fridge for a week and see how it blooms. Also upgrading my system this weekend from my (multiple) 1 gallon setups to an...

Yeah, that’s a good idea since I’ve only tasted the beer and not the wort. Worth a shot before I toss it. The beer tastes like plastic, which is usually a water problem, but this is the only time it’s ever showed up and I controlled for it the second time (btw, hoppy plastic is really gross)

I lost at least one bottle of beer in the active fermentation process to blowoff. Next time I’m planning to pitch half and see where that goes. On a side note, I bought a 5 gallon amber ale extract kit from northern brewer and have brewed with it twice and it tastes like absolute garbage. I...

Ok, so made a pale ale smash with citra and harvested lutra just now. Between the time I pitched and aerated and prepped the area it’s going to ferment in (about 3 minutes), it had already formed a krausen and was coming out the blowout hole before the tube got attached. Never seen or heard...

I’m a heretic and prime each bottle directly with 1/2 tsp sugar, skip the bottling bucket, and bottle straight from the fermenter.

Yeah, the lutra with little headroom pretty much requires a blowoff tube. I’ve been dry hopping on pitch lately, but for the lutra I have to wait a couple days because it clogged my blowoff tube

Been cruising through my brews, doing 3 brew days a week after the kids go to bed. Weekdays I’ll do an extract brew, just to cut down on time, then one to two full grain brews on the weekend. Two carboys are dedicated to two week fermenters, while my smaller one is a weekly one I do with Lutra -...

I’ve got a California common that will be bottled next week and used the other half of the yeast for a smash Pilsner/pearle that I made last night, both single gallon brews with 34/70. Next week I should get some MJ yeast in the mail, so I’ll try my hand again at the smash beer and an...

There’s two things I love most about brewing a gallon at a time. I can do it fairly quickly on my stove, and I have a wide variety of beers on hand. Tomorrow I’m bringing a case to my sisters 4th of July party that will contain Imperial Honey ale, a red ale, a grapefruit seltzer, a pseudo...

Just bottled mine last night. Pre-bottling it has a very pronounced banana flavor. Fermentation was pretty strong and started up right away then cleared up nicely over a 12 day ferment. Will be adding some fruit to the next batch to try and compliment the banana - hopefully will get that started...