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I'd avoid forcing dormancy. If you want all of your yeast, let it ferment out in the starter for three or four days before chilling it to drop. "Crashing" is not something yeast like to do. Forcing them to go dormant before they finish taking up their reserves will make for a stressful start in...

You don't mean fresh hops. This time of year they would be pure rot. If it were me, I'd split the Liberty between a 15m and 5m addition, and the cascades in the secondary. Throw the extract in there if you like, although looks like there's plenty for beer already. You can use it later.

It's kilned a little higher, aside from being a different strain of barley. So it has a bit richer, maltier taste. There's a spectrum of maltiness going from the lightest pale malt (1-2°L), through British/Scottish malts (3-5°L), then to Viennas (3.5-7°L), through the lighter and darker Munichs...

Weihenstephan will give very different phenolics/esters at different temps. Somewhere around 68°F is a good balance point, higher being more 4-vinyl guaiacol (clove), lower giving more iso-amyl acetate (banana); the bubblegum thing is a fusel, which is produced at higher temps generally (or...

Not only that, but when you click Choose, you have the option in the lower left to make a "new" mash program. Call it what you want, use the liquor:grain you like, lengths and temps are all up to you. He just put some basic "starters" in there for you to get the program running.

My opinion, stay away from champagne yeast. It is a poor last-result sort of thing. Pitch plenty of strong yeast in a well-oxygenated and fermentable wort and keep it happy. There is no pro brewer (certainly not winning awards) that would use champagne yeast in a beer.

Should you be concerned about aerating the wort as it passes by the tee? Not sure I like that part. Maybe there's a cheap way to put a twist-off valve or something right at the tee.

As long as your clean you can't really do it wrong. You have live, healthy yeast, and you are giving them good food. You can stir for 12 hr and leave it or stir the whole time for up to three days, or not stir at all. If I'm stepping up from a slant I usually stir for 24 hr, add more wort...

Good luck! Look forward to hearing how it comes out.

So, grain of salt and all that, but if you think you're going to go from 1.125 to 1.023 with 85% LME, you are going to be disappointed. Think more like 1.040, in which case you're going to want something like 70-100 IBU's in there, and some little 6oz glasses from which to drink it! (Actually...

It's a good thing to do when: You don't have your preboil volume, you don't mind adjusting your recipe on the fly, your runnings for the fourth runoff would be above 1.012 and/or you have the time. It's a bad thing when: It won't fit in your kettle, it'll mess up your gravity and hop pitching...

Haven't tried their kit, but Nottingham should work fine. I've done a toasted oat stout a few times that comes out week. Has about a pound of flaked oats toasted in the oven at 350 for 20, turned in between, then set aside for three days to degas. Could probably double the oats if you really...

For the record, I don't think you can reasonably call a lawnmower beer a quadrupel. You can reasonably call a strong Belgian-style beer a quadrupel, especially if it's above 9% abv. The name simply has nothing to do with the mashing schedule. No more than a trippel is "tripel mashed."

This is something I've thought about as well, and it's a good question. My current take on it is this: As mentioned, the IIPA's are often a bit dryer and more hop-focused, although if you look at historical barleywine recipes, the IBU's stand up to and even slaughter today's IIPA IBU values in...

Well, yeah, fine. But I've never seen a reference to mashing four times and calling it a quadrupel. Only with the Belgians and their "dubbel and trippel" thing, and then something stronger is made (again, usually dark) and they call it a quadrupel. What's a tripel? Three mashes? No, it's just...

Quadrupel just means stronger than a tripel. Marketing. It's usually dark, the ones I've had at least, so you can look at the style guides for a dark strong and then just call it "quadrupel" and you're there. No one in their right mind would mash four times.:drunk: Try 7# amber and 4# dark...

If you've been brewing a while, you already know what grains you'll be using the most. A workhorse 2-row (I like Marris Otter) and Pilsner (Weyermann, Dingemans my choices) will go a long way toward cutting your grain bill, uh... bill. If you brew a lot of wheats, maybe a sack of wheat malt; if...

Well, what better day to do 20g than on Big Brew day? I'm doing 10 each of a British Rye Pale, a Northern German Pils, and an 80/. Good times.

You do need to try and maximize the geometry to your average brew. Too narrow a mash tun will make for an overly thick grain bed and be prone to stuck sparges. I've heard of concerns for oxidization when the opposite happens and you have a large surface area, but I'm not sure how valid that is...

Put it this way: It'll take right at 10g to mash 30# with a 1:1 ratio. That's no room for sparging. Batch sparging has the edge there, but I'd recommend you get a larger cooler. The Ice Cube at 12.5g works well for me, but as it's getting old, I'm eyeing the bigger one, think it's 15g. Hopefully...