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That whole ten minutes of boiling means sterilization myth has floated around homebrewing for decades. There are molds and other microorganisms that can survive at temperatures above boiling. With wort you're feeding anything that survives a huge food source with no competition, so anything that...

Keeping them in the fridge will extend the life. Between the ph and salt content, they will deter spoilage especially at lower temperatures. Mold seems to be the biggest problem I run into with fermented foods, even in the fridge at times. Vacuum sealing makes it extremely difficult for mold to...

Not really strange, we just tend not to notice it. I recall somebody of prominence--Bamforth maybe--say if you drank several IPAs and then tried an industrial lager, you'll taste the banana in almost all of them. I agree it should down to that unnoticeable amount with some lagering.

When you see breweries (especially in the US) using shapes or sizes other than the normal 750ml it's because they can special order large enough volumes that their wholesalers can place orders. Homebrew shops generally sell so little of that kind of bottle that the wholesalers tend to only make...

I've never tried Proximity as a comparison but I keep Root Shoot's pilsner and pale malt on hand for base malt always. It's a little more expensive than the larger suppliers but the flavor is better. Their pilsner malt has more flavor than most of the larger suppliers, both domestic and...

That just isn't true. This is something that some homebrewer said and raced around the internet without any thought. I heard it when I started brewing over a decade ago and I'm sure it was out there a decade or more before that. Unless you have killer strains involved (which do not include any...

I would try to scoop out as much of the dry hops as you can. You don't need more than about a cup of yeast for a five gallon batch so you can clean most of that out and avoid unwanted tannins from the leftover dry hops and other unintended effects.

I don't use a lot of crystal malt these days. If any in American hoppy beers, its a little C40. In darker beers, a little C80. I use C120 very rarely when special B is too raisiny for the beer.

You're overthinking a lot here.

Should be fine unless the yeast underwent several rounds of freezing. If the temps stayed above freezing in a cool space, it's probaby not much different from storing the packet in the fridge. If you have any suspicion temperatures reached freezing over that time period I would try making a...

The answer to most of your questions is "it depends on what you want" because a lot of this just depends on your preference for this beer. Some of your more technical or procedural questions involve lengthy answers for which there are books written and you should read those books if you intend...

A lot of this goes back to the view that sour beers benefit from small amounts of oxygen contact. If you go back like ten years you'll see a lot of brewers complaining that they tried to age sour beers in kegs and felt like they didn't get sour enough or develop enough flavor. I don't agree and...

I tried it out with a couple tanks a while back around the time Yeast came out and we all decided it was really important. I don't dispute the science but I never felt like it improved my beers over my usually sloshy racking process on brew days. After the two tanks ran out I never bought more...

I can't speak to questions about the variety or diseases in your area but I have a couple wine grapevines I put in spring 2020 so they have a couple years on them. It takes a few years before you'll start seeing production. They are slow growing plants and you want to shape them the first few...

Gordon Strong published this technique in his book as the solution to overly harsh stouts and suddenly it became the thing to do. It occurred right around the time when stouts were losing their roasty edge in favor of increasingly sweeter flavors, so maybe it has some good utility in making...

It's been a lot time since I've found one in the wild but usually it seems they use British isle derived strains fermented on the warmer side so there are some esters present. I think any of those strains would work fine. Pick which one you like best that has the alcohol tolerance for the recipe...

You'll always get an accumulation of trub that eventually you'll want to clear out. If your primary fermentation occurs in the keg you'll probably want to do that every other fermentation. With secondary fermentations you can go several runs before the trub will be an issue. Your plan is fine...

24 hours should be sufficient

You could and probably should consider in-home RO or at least charcoal filtration systems in addition to using campden to eliminate chlorine/chloramine. Plenty of people repeat the proposition that if you tap water tastes ok you can brew with it although I don't entirely agree. You can make...

I also use Carlo Rossi jugs for my one gallon batches. Fermcap will prevent explosive fermentations, especially in combination with a blowoff tube. In a two gallon bucket I would use an airlock. I wouldn't worry about use a blowoff but definitely would not use it without a release for CO2.