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Calling the breakdown of Star-San a yeast nutrient isn't exactly wrong but it's a bit of an exaggeration. It's very useful for convincing people not to fear the foam but using it as a sole nutrient is a mistake. The main ingredient in Star-San is phosphoric acid. Phosphorus is good for yeast...

I agree with this. If you accidentally ferment too warm, you can introduce all kinds of nasty flavors to your beer -- grapefruit, banana, stuff like that. If you accidentally ferment too cool, the biggest risk is putting your yeast to sleep before fermentation is done. Go back to a place with...

So I finally went for it and tested the result today. It wasn't that bad! It was like a dirty Stone Ruination. Unfortunately, there were filtration problems so we only got a gallon and three quarters. Turns out 13 ounces of hops is pretty bulky. :cross: 8.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0...

There was this one guy who got his yeast eaten by an insect, then he left it sitting there for 45 million years in all kinds of climates. The beer still turned out good. It's actually pretty hard to kill yeast, and once it finds some sugar, it wants to go to work on it.

I do the same, but only until the BetterBottle engineers roll out a 6.5 gallon version they have confidence in. I don't use buckets because I am way too much of a spazz to be trusted with a mouth that wide, even for the short time the cover is off. When the BB boys do have a product with...

All of those are true but I still can't think of a single store in the world that charges more on-site. And I shop at a fair number of stores which also have significant on-line presences. Campmor, B&H, Adorama, etc. In B&H's case, they have the extra savings of never having to bring shipped...

I don't care how big a sale my LHBS has or how much it'll improve my brews, there's no way I can afford a tachyon reverse-polarizing device.

Perhaps a little pine note on the aroma that you weren't expecting, is all. That said, I disagree with the others about the snow; you do have a problem. Specifically you must now come up with a goofy snow-related name for your beer like "Yellow Snow" or "Winter Storm Warning" or some such.

You're fine. My guess (and it's just a guess) is that maybe you didn't pre-heat the liquid malt extract and therefore it didn't all go into the boil, preferring as it does sometimes to stick to the sides of the can. Don't worry, though. Your beer will still be just fine. Alcohol isn't the...

You got it in one. Even with a starter, the time it takes for the yeast to get really going can vary, and the time before it starts moving that airlock can vary even more. I've had airlock activity and krauzening happen so fast it seemed like it was before pitching yeast and I've had it be a...

It's difficult to tell with that hopped extract but putting the other ingredients into Beer Smith, based on the gravity, alcohol and color and by the English hops it looks like a Northern English Brown Ale (11C), the German label notwithstanding.

Weird. Vlad can be brusque (he's from the Bronx, after all :D ) but I've never known him to be rude. I have no reason to doubt your account so all I can say is a) perhaps you caught him at a bad moment (putting together that competition is a huge undertaking) and/or b) maybe Vlad sucks at...

Huh. That's vastly different from my experience there over the last couple years. I'm sorry that happened. I assure you that if you return that won't happen again. I'm not a club officer or anything but I can vouch for the non-douchiness of those who are. My biggest problem is that the...

The Manhattan-based group meets at Burp Castle on the third Tuesday of each month and their site is here.

Are you sure about that? Mine only extends a few inches from the radius of the carboy. As a NYC small-apartment homebrewer (note my username :D ), one of the best non-standard purchases I ever made was a 40-quart aluminum pot at one of those restaurant supply places in Chinatown. I use it...

On the other hand if he recently upgraded from a Cybershot to a full-dSLR it's the exact perfect book for him. I endorse it. Rick, another idea if you wanted go to away from the book is a gift certificate to his local camera shop. Digital photography has vastly lowered the marginal cost...

That's kind of why I asked -- it takes a year for anyone to like molasses beer and then sometimes people don't like it anyway. And it doesn't make sense for Washington to have use for a recipe like that; he had access to first-runnings porter most of the time. That's what made me wonder if the...

Ah, that leads nicely into my question. I'm on board with extended primaries when it's entirely or mostly yeast down there, but I've been going to secondary when there's a ton of additives during the boil or in the primary -- coffee, cinnamon, whatever. The idea being of course that I want to...

That's a rich vein right there. Off the top of my head, Lineman, 12-string, Memphis, Momma Tried and of course Whiskey River come to mind.

Is your username a tribute to the great San Francisco tattoo artist Norman Collins? If so that world can be a deep well for great beer names.