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Many thanks! It was the "well below 60" part that needed clarifying. Patience I have, but now I need to convince myself I can handle the temperatures.

Hi Group, After brewing six (okay, five and a half) terrific ales, I'm mentally prepared to try a lager. I'm hoping you all can clarify some issues for me. First, as much as I'm grateful for advice here about not needing to rack to secondary for ales, it's a different case for lagers...

@ Suthrncomfrt1884: Wow, that looks really good! I was just starting to think about brewing a brown ale, and I think this'll be the one. Thanks for sharing.

Shoot, I think I'd just rinse the grain bag and use it again. In fact, I'm going to try that next time around.

Hi Everybody, I just wanted to beam with pride that I brewed my fifth batch (an ESB from extract) tonight. The first step? Open a bottle of batch number 4. This brew night went much more smoothly than the previous four, and I owe a lot of this to you all at the forum. Thanks for helping...

Hey, thanks everybody. I was just about to post the very same question, since I just had a little strainer clog earlier this evening. A hops bag sounds like the veritable nuts.

MOD EDIT: More merging. Hi everybody, I saw a TV ad recently for a commercial beer that made a big deal of being "triple hopped." My guess is that this is a vacuous advertising claim, since even a novice like me adds hops twice to the wort. I could easily imagine adding a third dose for some...

I used bleach a few times, but always had this deep paranoia that I couldn't tell when I had rinsed it all out. There was always lingering bleach aroma in the room where I was doing this, so I must have wasted dozens of gallons of water rinsing unecessarily. Now I've moved over to Starsan...

To the question of the beer itself: I brewed a Cooper's wheat a while back, using their suppied sugars, and kind of wish I hadn't. That batch had a kind of "hollow" taste to it. I don't have the vocabulary to really describe it, but it was more watery than it had a right to be. Or I screwed...

The rule of thumb you usually hear is "1-2-3." That's one week in primary, to complete the fermentation. Two weeks in secondary, where you may move the beer to a second container, if you wish (many don't, though). And three weeks in the bottle before the amber liquid starts to reach its...

Yes, thanks Revvy. I learned more from your post than in many other places I've read about this subject. I can see the confusion, since "secondary" is an adjective that should require a noun - secondary what? I like using "bright tank." Anyway, wish me luck as I bottle from my primary, the...

Anybody have any opinions about Seven Bridges Brewing Co. ("All organic ingredients!")? I ordered from them, but have yet to taste the fruits of this labor. Based on this thread I might have a look at Midwest.

Original Poster here. I should have been more specific. I'm counting weeks from the time time gravity has leveled off at a reasonable final value. (OG = 1.042, FG = 1.010). It's now one week after that - surely explosions are no longer an issue? My curiosity is about how much better it...

Hi Folks, I had an idea to run by the local experts here. I have a brown ale conditioning in my primary. Quite apart from the issue of whether I should have racked it, the question is how long should I leave it in there. I hear people say things like "leave it in there for 1-3 weeks."...

May I recommend a kit from Cooper's? That's where I started, and am still using the equipment (in particular, it comes with a handy five gallon fermenter). This kit had it all, and made my first brew painless and idiot-proof. From what I gather, Cooper's is pretty good about sending...

On a realted note, should we expect the gravity to change further during secondary fermentation? Or do you wait in the primary until reaching the FG, then it stays put?

Hi All, I have read elsewhere on these forums that a brown ale (which I'm brewing now) is a pretty forgiving style, i.e., you can scew up pretty badly and still make a drinkable beer. Lucky for me! What are some others that are forgiving in this sense? Also, which are the ones that...

Thanks for the quick replies. Cold. bottled top-off water might be useful to cool the wort, too, if I'm careful about amounts and starting temperature. @ Parker 36: Thanks for the tip on Boulder's water. Makes me feel better about some questionable rinsing I've done in the past.

Hi everybody, A quick question about my partial boil. I boil and cool 3 gallons of water in my brewpot, then transfer it to the fermentor. Then I can use the same pot for boiling. Question: Could I do the first step one day, then begin the fun parts the next day? In other words, can I...

Hi everybody, I'm a simple newbie extract brewer, planning my third batch. I wonder if anybody knows a good extract recipe out there that can mimic the famous Czech Pilsner Urquell. Or is it something that can only really be achieved by carefully selecting your own grains and hops...