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Sure. Kai Troester (Braukaiser.com) is a guy who has done a ton of scientific research related to homebrewing. Here's one of his more in depth posts on the subject. There has been some question for some time about the Mr. Malty numbers, as they seem to be okay for simple (non agitated)...

No offense taken. If there are legit issues, I absolutely want to know about them!

My numbers will be drastically different than Mr. Malty. I explain that on the page below the calculator; I exclusively use the Kai Troester formulae for estimating yeast growth.

Understand that on the overbuild, it does assume that you have a homogenous mixture. It projected 302 billion cells for you total, with 100 billion as your overbuild. 100/302 = 33.11% of your total cells. So, 33.11% of your 1.5 liter starter is just a fuzz over 500ml. That is what...

Thanks, I hope that you find it to be useful.

Here's a labor of love that I hope you find useful - my new yeast starter calculator. Like any good starter calculator, it will help you figure your yeast viability and what size starter you need to hit your desired cell count. Unlike other calculators, this one allows you to "overbuild"...

Happy to help. It's a super easy project, and you can't get much less expensive. The improvement was really noticeable.

tl;dr - I spend five minutes and five bucks to make a DIY wind screen. It works fantastic! If you'd like to read (and see pictures), the full post is here.

Good luck, Arkansas. We have this nonsense all over the place in Alabama. What's crazier, we have a few "wet" cities in "dry" counties. Sigh.

Can I make an unpopular confession? I never take preboil gravities. It's been so long since I've missed a gravity by more than a point or two that I just don't worry about it. This weekend was no different - once I adjusted for temperature, I nailed 1.074 on the nose.

This past weekend, I brewed a Christmas ale. One of the techniques I employed was reducing a gallon of the first runnings to a syrup. This post walks you through the process (which is, admittedly, very simple).

Definitely boil it, but only for long enough to really dissolve it - unless you have mold growth, maple syrup doesn't really spoil or grow harmful stuff. Be aware that using priming sugar for flavor will, at best, give you a hint of the flavor you are looking for - maple syrup is no...

Cumin is nice. I've been known to tinker with it, batch to batch. I came close to adding black beans this time around, as I've developed a taste for them... but I didn't want to experiment prior to the contest. I also have some overcarbed bock that's trying to convince me to add it to chili...

Last week, I posted about brewing for my company, then winning the chili cookoff. I had several people contact me for the recipe, so I decided to just post it online. Here you go!

The two biggest tings you can do to improve your beer are to control fermentation temperatures (which you are doing) and to pitch enough healthy yeast (which you are not doing, but are aware of). Seriously, using a good yeast calculator and a stirplate can be a night and day difference in the...

Well, I'm sold now. It's easy to keep the lid on the bucket, and it's easy to have sanitized lids at hand.

lol @ banana. You're not the first to give me that. What strain are you using? What temp do you ferment at? Do you make good starters? How to you oxygenate?

Happy to share. Good luck with your own process! As for the beer... well, such is trying to make a recipe (especially with lots of unknown factors) meet a mental expectation. I've had great luck in the past, but there are bound to be misses. I will probably try again at some point. If...

Yep. I do an assembly line when bottling, I still crimp the caps all in one go, but I now fill, stick a sanitized cap on top, then move to the next bottle. This (and the bucket lid) may be the key piece... though if so, it seems odd I had brewed for so long without this issue in the past...

Seven plus weeks into bottles. Have had multiple beers from the batch. I'm happy to report that I see zero issues related to bottle infections - it looks like the new regimen has taken care of the problems. Sadly, I screwed up this beer through my own stupidity. It's drinkable, but...