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The latter, so 3-4 weeks on the yeast cake in the primary fermenter. A lot of people say 3 weeks in bottles is better, too. I've been brewing for about a year, and the best ingredient I've found in my homebrew is patience! My first few batches, I bottled right at 2 weeks, and cracked open my...

Don't worry about the bubbles, it's only one sign of fermentation, and not a reliable one. Give it a couple weeks and then check the gravity. If you get the same for 3 days in a row, then you're done. In the meantime - sounds like everything is going great. edit: Should mention, when I say...

While you're both obviously right, and people used bleach for years, I consider it a rookie mistake because since you have to rinse it really well, presumably with tap water, the last thing to touch your fermenter or what have you is possibly contaminated tap water. And if you don't rinse it...

Brew another! The first will come out fine, and so will the second. One first timer mistake I remember was sanitizing with bleach, yikes. I took Papazian to heart, I guess. My second mistake was not being patient enough. The beer (a pale ale) was a lot better after it aged a while. I...

A couple people discussed it in the HBC 342 thread. I brewed mine last weekend and it chugged along nicely for a while as I fermented it pretty cool. As for the experimental nature of the kit, I bittered with centenial or whatever it came with, then an ounce of HBC 342 at 15 and 5. I'm going...

Absolutely. Take it off, clean, and sanitize. The CO2 pressure will keep anything nasty from getting in while you do that. You may want to rig up a blowoff tube instead, since that is obviously going pretty nuts!

If you're using 05 or anything else dry, you should pitch multiple packs. Mr. Malty will let you know how many based on the OG. You shouldn't make a starter with dry yeast, just rehydrate.

I believe that cold brewed coffee is a bit less acidic and may be perceived as smoother. So I think there may be a noticeable difference. I have not done either method myself, but my friend cold-brewed coffee for a stout, and it was delicious and not too difficult.

I'm going to dry hop for 2 weeks so I can really get the most of the experimental hops. I'm going to leave it in primary for a few more weeks, though, so it's freshest around New Year's Eve. Let us know how yours turns out! I finally brewed my batch on sunday, and did that schedule (1 oz at...

Sounds interesting - might be pretty hoppy for a spiced ale. In any event, it'll be your own creation and a fun experiment!

My friend from VT is chummy with the brewers at Long Trail. Apparently they use the same yeast in all their beers and just vary the ingredients. So I imagine yeast will be the trickiest thing here, you may want to harvest it from a bottle, if you can. I've read before Wyeast 1007 is kinda...

I was bottle conditioning my pumpkin ale the past few weeks in a cold room (~60) in hopes of bringing a sixer to a Halloween party on saturday. I popped one to test it - very, if not almost completely, flat. Never had that happen before. I say almost completely flat because when I poured it...

After brewing for a year, I'm starting to find that the only time you need a blowoff tube is when you didn't use one! I've only had 2 beers come up into the airlock, and all the times when I used a blowoff tube, I had more gentle fermentation. Luckily nothing ended up in a carpet, yech.

It comes with BB Hopnog. I got some last weekend, but haven't brewed it yet. It has three ounces of whole leaf HBC 342 and 3/4 ounce of bittering hops, I forget which. I stuck all the hops in the freezer until I have a chance to use it. It came with a free growler too, which my wife wasn't...

It has maltodextrin, 8 oz I think. I've never brewed with lactose, but I think that's a bit sweeter. The double chocolate should be a bit bitter, but I imagine you could sub lactose for a milk chocolate stout. Sounds good to me. As for the oatmeal stout, I was talking about in the bottles...

If you get a prechiller as well and put that in icewater, you'll be amazed at how fast your wort chills. I used to use the icewater in the sink method and it took FOREVER sometimes.

I brewed the AHS double chocolate stout extract kit last night. It has cocoa powder for the last 5 mins which I don't think will be incredibly strong, but you could soak cacao nibs in vodka and add to secondary or something to up it. It has great reviews on the AHS website which is why I tried...

They're always a lot of fun. Some of the flavors work better than others, the pack I get at Costco has a raspberry vodka one that is disgusting, but the Jack, Cointreau, and Gran Marnier are all delicious.

I made my first starter for the chocolate stout I'm brewing tonight. I lost about half a liter to spillage, but I got a lot of activity overnight and it looks good to go. I'm going to add bourbon before bottling and bring it to a christmas party that I usually bring these to...

That's what I did (by accident), and think that was the right move. I kept my spices fairly tame as I wanted the spices and pumpkin flavor to be subtle and balanced, and now they don't have to fight any hop flavor or aroma. It's carbonating now, but the samples I tried were very good.