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Find a place that does exchanges and hope they dont check. Out of all the times I've filled my CO2 tank, its been checked all of twice.

Years at least. I have a few bottles that say I can age them for up to 5 years. They are around 10% ABV but I've heard others say that anything above 7-8% has the potential to age. Whether or not the flavors will get any better is something entirely different though.

Take the grain bag and let drain into the steeping pot. Then either sparge the grains with 170F water or you can probably safely skip it. If you are doing an extract with specialty grains, I don't think sparging is all that necessary as long as you let the grains drain well.

You could try pouring it between two fermenters. But from what I've gathered with extract beer it is nearly impossible to miss the target OG since all the gravity points come from extract which doesn't allow for much error. There is no mashing which if done incorrectly give you less...

I'd check calibration too. I was using a thermometer yesterday that while I had a full rolling boil only read about 190F. To calibrate fill a glass with ice and then with water. Stir for 30 seconds and read with your thermometer. Should read 32F exactly. Then bring some water to boil and as...

Bacteria cannot grow but the sugar does not outright kill them. Bacterial spores are readily capable of surviving in high sugar/salt environments. But that being said I doubt that honey would have very many if any of those spores.

I fermented my first beer at 70F+ room temp and as it has aged the frutiness has pretty much subsided to nothing. Its a porter so lighter beers may not undergo the same thing.

Thanks I will boil it first since it will also let me see how long it will take my stove to boil a full 6 gallons. As a side note: I was under the impression that the oxide layer generates spontaneously in contact with the water in the air. So why wouldn't the oxide layer be there as it sat in...

So I got a 7.5 gallon aluminum brew kettle and am wondering if I need to do anything to it before I use it? I've heard some say that you have to boil water in it first to generate the oxide layer but then others say that its only if you scratch it. So do I need to boil water in it before I go...

My first beer fermented at about those temps and at first it tasted way too estery. However, its been a month and the beer is completely different. The esters have faded substantially.

I agree with Oldsock, the majority of the vanilla flavor will be in the bourbon after you soak it so you should think about adding the bourbon as well. After all, vanilla extract is mostly ethanol since vanilla is so soluble in ethanol.

24 12 ounce bottles is the limit before you will have to pay a tax on it. Should be the same going from Canada to US especially since you are a US citizen. http://canadaonline.about.com/od/customs/a/alcoholvisitor.htm

I type my recipe into a word file, add notes and tasting notes and save each under its own name in a folder named "Beer". As my collection grows its easy to back up the folder across multiple drives for redundancy.

I don't see why not. But what are you going to use for bottling in the mean time? Perhaps rack one of your other beers to the bottling bucket as a "secondary" to free up a primary, wait a few weeks then just bottle out of the bucket?

Haha why so? :confused: She doesn't like beer so I cant get her interested in brewing beer but since she likes cider I figure getting her into making cider will help her get into home brewing.

My first brew had that because while racking to the bottling bucket I sucked up a bit of the yeast cake. Every one of my bottles has a fine layer of yeast at the bottom, still tastes fine.

Thanks. My GF's birthday is May but the present isn't going to be the finished product but rather the stuff to make it together. I will probably ferment to dryness, rack to secondary for a month and then let her back sweeten with lactose until she gets it to the sweetness she likes, then add...

So the GF and I want to make a cider for her birthday. She likes ciders on the sweeter side which means I will have to halt the cider from fermenting all the way out. I do not have kegging equipment or the space to do such which would be the easiest way... So my solution to this problem...

How did you know the tank was half full? Did you pick it up and weigh it or was the pressure at the half-way point pressure wise? If you did the former then what was the temperature change? I doubt even a wild temp swing would cause the loss of any Co2. If you did the later you were looking...

Your stomach is capable of dealing with a lot of nasties so if the beer tastes fine I doubt there is anything in there that could possibly make you sick. Also that is why you have a nose right above your mouth, so you can smell if it is rotten before you put it into your mouth.