Search results

You can't own a list of ingredients and a basic process, especially when the brewery will necessarily have to modify it to fit their system. You can't stop a business from using the recipe or derivative versions once you give it to them. Your options are either give the recipes away freely or...

If you look around craigslist or look for local facebook homebrewing groups, you can probably find bottles for free or cheaper than buying new bottles from the homebrew shop.

When hefeweizen yeast get too hot they start making strawberry flavor in addition to banana, which is why you get that bubble gum flavor in improperly fermented hefeweizen and some Belgian beers.

Instant oats at the store. Store brand is fine.

Turkey fryers are fine depending on your batch size. They usually come with an eight gallon pot which is about the max you really want out of a burner that size. If you brew 5-6 gallon batches, it does the job just fine. It's not going to be quick to reach a boil, especially in cold months. If...

Looking at the spirit bottles in my house, the screwtop lids don't seem especially well constructed with much of a gasket to maintain pressure. Seems like you have a good chance the lids leak out CO2 or the plastic bottles might split at the seams if the lids hold pressure. Soda bottles would be...

I remember this being a topic of discussion when I started brewing in the late 2000s and the primary reason why I never bought anything to control hops in the boil. You can probably find dozens, if not hundreds, of threads asking about this. I realize logistically some systems need to prevent...

Typical American ale yeast are good options, especially if you want a more hoppy or crisp feel. Most of the American craft red and brown ales are brewed this way and the vast majority with chico. Personally I like brewing these beers with London Ale III which balances the hop and malt...

Some bacteria create exopolysaccharides that create this texture. It's often referred to as ropiness or sickness. Pedio is known to cause this in sour beer but it's not the only bacteria that creates these compounds. If it otherwise smells ok it's probably fine. If it smells like rotting trash...

Right--I don't think 3711 would have had an issue if it had been pitched at the start and continued to work as the ph dropped but that's not what happened here.

What you're probably seeing here is a combination of acid shock to the 3711 and minimal fermentable sugar for 3711 to consume. At this point it may make sense to just let the yeast in the beer do its thing until FG is reached and accept the beer for what it is. If you are dead set on trying to...

It's possible the unit shipped to the original owner with the enclosed cord and what they sold as refurbished was just the original accessory. I believe these units at some point shipped with these cables to give you the option of wiring into a 220v transformer. Still, would have been a helpful...

I would discourage you from option three because you're more likely to end up with an incomplete fermentation. Although some wine yeast are listed as maxing out around 18% that's under normal wine fermentation conditions. Yeast need nutrients and oxygen for healthy fermentation. You also need to...

A major issue is how long the beer is going to stay in the barrel. If it's going to be in there for any meaningful length of time, it's going to make sense to top it up. If this is the barrel's first use after the distillery, it may be ready to go after just a few weeks. In that case, I wouldn't...

If the cider is dry, it may not be necessary to arrest further fermentation. If you want to keep any amount of sugar, then you should arrest fermentation at the desired stopping point. One important detail there is how the juice blend was processed before you bought it. If your homebrew shop...

Certainly seems like they consolidated all the orders out of the MN warehouse as part of the acquisition of Adventures in Homebrewing and Austin Homebrew. I can't imagine they kept employees out of the closed storefronts and warehouses. (IMO it seems like a huge missed opportunity to maintain...

It's probably not a big deal and the cider yeast probably helped move fermentation along. Cider yeast, like wine yeast, tend to excel at fermenting simple sugars so the cider yeast you pitched probably did exactly that. It is possible that you underpitched the ale yeast and they showed up to the...

The reason why there are fewer winemaking groups (at least in the US) is the difficulty of making great wine and especially doing it from grape, rather than kit. Modern winemaking is more fussy than brewing, grapes or fresh must can only be acquired generally in one small window of the year, and...

I've had oak aged milds and willing to join the consensus that it's a lot of wood flavor and the beer gets lost. You'd be fine with a beer in the 5-7% range with a delicate hand adding oak. That opens the doors for English IPA, higher gravity bitters, porter/stout and brown ale.

I think this is fine although if I wanted to change one thing I would adjust the water profile to lean more towards sulfate than chloride. If you've brewed similar beers with that water profile and you're happy with the result, you should keep doing what works. The recipe is moving in the...