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Well.... okay, just this once. I recently had to brew for a special occasion at the last minute and had the same type of beer drinkers to brew for as well, and I settled on doing what best could be described as a Belgian White-- closer to a Blue Moon than an Allagash. I think it meets most of...

Let's fix that! It's pretty easy. Look at your OG and current gravity. For simplicity, get rid of the "1." and any leading zeros. Subtract the current gravity from the OG. 48 - 18 = 30 Now figure out what % of 48 is 30: 30 / 48 = .625 Your yeast had an apparent attenuation of 62.5%. Of course...

Right, as I said I've never experienced it. I doubt it's the issue. I mentioned it only because it's what is most commonly linked to "soapy" flavor / aroma. I brought up diacetyl because pulling it from the fermenter too soon would cause that problem, and it's the next closest thing I've heard...

It has been said soapy flavors can develop if you leave the beer in the primary fermentor for too long. "Too long" depends on the style and other conditions (probably talking a month or two), but personally I've never experienced it. I've heard some people describe the mouthfeel of diacetyl as...

From those pics I'd say not infected, and pretty normal looking. I think you're ok. When I get infections they usually look like a thick layer of fluffy cobwebs over the surface of the beer, but infections can take different forms. Even still, in the past I have siphoned the beer out from...

I'm fairly a harsh judge of my work, though I usually can tell when I have a winner on my hands, or when I it has noticeable flaws. On most occasions other people's opinions are far more positive than my own. However, if I ever brew something that I'm just flat-out unhappy with, it typically...

I looked up the yeast you used, and there are no specific attenuation ranges posted, it just says "High." So I looked up a comparable yeast on the White Labs site (WLP810, California Lager) and it says 65-70%. With a current ABV of 5.38% I assume your current gravity is something like 1.022...

o_O:eek: Yeow. That's fairly extreme!

No, milled grain size doesn't have any relationship to strike temp. RM-MN was just pointing out the effect of higher mash temps on time of conversion. I think you need to do some more reading on the mash process, but I'll give a quick high-level summary to eliminate some of the confusion you...

The OG and FG numbers you posted give an estimated ABV of 6%. Seems like pretty solid fermentation happened here. What were you expecting to hit for FG and ABV according to the recipe? Also, as a comment: sweetness in beer doesn't necessarily mean fermentation isn't done. I saw in another...

Generally speaking, the mash should be in the range of 145F to 158F. The lower the temperature is in this range, the more fermentable sugars are produced. The closer to 158F your mash gets, more and more sugars which cannot be fermented by yeast are produced and will add body and sweetness to...

I'd make the differentiation between words like "need" and "require" in regards to aging, with other terms such as "benefit from" or "improve with." All the dark, high ABV beers I age are also very good when fresh. There are just other changes that only time can provide. For example, if you...

In my experience, dark, high ABV beers age very well. I brew a 10% Russian Imperial Stout every year around this time and age it 6 months to have in the fall. I've saved several bottles for more than a year and do a vertical tasting with each new batch. Each year, the aged version of the same...

Not to beat a dead horse, but... The presence of alcohol in fermenting beer will impact a refractometer measurement in a specific, repeatable manner-- the same as how temperature differences will impact a hydrometer reading in a specific, repeatable manner. In other words, a conversion formula...

Weevil Story! Last summer we started finding weevils all over the floor in one of our rooms. They started spreading and getting worse. We couldn't figure out the source of the infestation. All my brewing grain in the basement was fine, as was all the flour and dry goods in the pantry. The weird...

A refractometer may be used for both OG and FG. When I first started using mine years ago I compared the hydrometer and spectrometer for every batch I made and not once had a discrepancy, so I no longer use the hydrometer. However, I will note that I use the "refractometer tool" in BeerSmith to...

Hello! Based on some of the feedback in this similar thread from 5 years ago, you may have over-pitched. Give that a read and see what you think.

Hello! Airlock activity is not the best measure of how fermentation is progressing; gravity measurements are. Generally, the way to proceed is to let it sit for a couple weeks and then take a gravity reading. Let it sit for another 3 days and take a second gravity reading. If the gravity remains...

Hello! First, with regard to the fermentation vessels: I've been brewing with both food-grade wide mouth buckets and glass carboys for a very long time. There is no difference in taste. I much prefer buckets as they are easier to clean and can also server other purposes in the brewing process...

Hello! It's a curve. This link goes to a fairly in-depth study on it (though I cannot comment on its veracity, and I haven't read it all). Here's a quick chart from that page: It seems to me that it would be very difficult to determine the actual IBU since you'd somehow have to work out...