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Yes. I just concluded a five-yeast test using juice I pressed from Cortlands. Lavlin D47, Montrachet, Premier Cuvee, E-1118 and a spontaneous Wild ferment. Each yeast, unsurprisingly, took the juice down to around 0.995, and the resulting ciders were indistinguishable (i.e. each was equally...

Think about it: if we had to make starters this large with that much yeast for 1.047 beer, the starters would basically cost as much as the grain and hops. That's... screwy. :) If that were the liquid yeast option, I would just go with US-04, hands down. Fortunately, though, it isn't. I bet a...

Nice. That's gonna be a MOFO of a Blonde! :) Just remember to do things the same way next time and adjust grains accordingly, given the mash efficiency you're getting. Also if you end up with too-high efficiency, you can literally just add water to reduce the original gravity. I just...

Great beer. People try it and say it's just like a nice light beer except without that horrible mass-produced taste. Really happy with this recipe, it feels like it can't really go wrong. Thanks, BM! I used Nottingham, and I fermented at 62F. Beer is very clean, I get no "bready" or sweet...

It's in a carboy, yeah. I'm no chemist so I don't know if the sulfur is released or if it breaks down somehow. But to be on the safe side I'm assuming it's released and that it needs somewhere to go. Really, though, I've never had sulfury smells go past 2 months, and if you're trying to turn...

Gonefishing is right, there is no way that a commercial fridge will be warm enough to ferment. I have a b***h of a time getting mine to sit above 37F even on the hottest setting. You definitely need a temperature regulator.

Hey all, I don't have access to Simpson's Dark, the darker malt in this recipe. Would subbing ordinary Crystal 120L be OK? Or should I stick to UK malts (I can get Baird's dark, 70-80L)?

The Wilserbag is amazing, cheap, and the best part for me is not having to clean all the DAMN GRAIN out of the mash tun afterwards... just lift the bag, done. Lord, how I hated cleaning that mash tun.

Whatever real-life inadequacy or frustration is causing you to become this kind of person on the internet, I am truly sorry. It must be awful.

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean so suggest that new brewers should be shooting for 14 days grain to glass! The point is that they can do primary in 14 days. If they bottle and that takes another 14, great, that's beer in a month. But they lose two weeks for basically nothing when they let the beer...

100% agree with this post. As a newb I wasted a LOT of learning time sitting around an extra 2 weeks for each beer waiting for it to "condition". I go 14 days grain to glass now and I can't keep a keg longer than two weeks with everyone wanting to drink the beers all the time. I can't see...

Storage. Keeping carbed/carbing bottles in 75F or less. Not only does this greatly increase shelf-life, last year I nearly murdered my own cat with a pair of exploding bottles in 105F temps. Poor little guy escaped harm but it could have been a lot worse!

Agreed that crush is a major factor. However, another one is grain quality. As I understand it, if the grain is old or improperly stored, it can lose some of the enzymes which are necessary for conversion of starches into sugars. Where are you getting the grain from, and how is it stored...

Ah, I see, sorry I missed that bit. UK store-bought is probably pretty high in malic, too. In any case, if the sourness you're tasting is like the kind you get from a sour candy only without the sugar, it's malic acid, and not an infection. Not sure what would account for the difference in...

As I understand it, hops need at least a low-gravity wort to achieve acid-utilization properly... you can add some of the DME at the start and more at the end, but water-based "hop tea" is not the same thing as properly extracted hop acids in wort. Something about the hops needing some of the...

It's important to note that just about any North American apple juice from any source, store-bought or otherwise, is going to be sour when you ferment it out fully. That isn't an infection, it's malic acid, which exists in fairly high levels for most NA apples. The key is to get fermentation...

Yeah, exactly. There seem to be about a million models that are roughly the same thing, basically I just made sure that mine read SG and not just Brix, as that one seems to.

Nothing has been more useful to me as an AG brewer than the little $20 refractometer I got on ebay. The reason being this: hydrometers need 5-6oz of liquid for a reading, which means you've got to chill a large amount in the freezer to take a reading. This takes a long time. You can also...

As far as I can tell, Gelatin fining basically takes care of most of this in one simple step. I use Brulosopher's method and don't worry about trub or hop material at all, and I can read newspapers through my beer glasses...

Deal.