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Sweet. Much obliged.

If your hydrometer confirms that it really ISN'T fermenting, it might have been that your wort was too hot when you pitched, or that the yeast wasn't rehydrated... How/when did you pitch?

I would like to do a series of little test-batches... Looking for ideas for containers that would work well as small fermenters. No more than a gallon capacity each, preferably half that size. The idea is to get a first-hand impression of the characteristics of different hops, malts, etc...

So it mostly effects color? What about flavor and body? (I wouldn't be using the pre-hopped stuff)

You can get a water analysis done on your tap water, but rule of thumb: if it tastes good, brew with it. I live in Salt Lake City, and the tap water here has been just fine. (This mostly applies to extract brewing. If you plan to do an all-grain, you should be more thoughtful about your water...

What does this achieve?

For all of my batches thus far, I've just washed my bottles in the dishwasher, given them an extra rinse after the washing cycle, and called it good. I make sure to use non-scented dish soap. The extra rinse is probably more for peace of mind, but it could also get rid of any dish soapy...

The ring around the bottle neck is a sure-fire sign of bacterial contamination. What were your methods of sanitation? If the beer smells and tastes fine, it could be a film from priming sugar that wasn't mixed well. Don't be so quick to pour your batched brews out -- more often than not it...

Hey, John! You should stop by The Beer Nut (if you haven't already) on 1200 S. State Street and say hello. Anybody there will help orient you. Ask for Jesse Brown and tell him David from (HomeBrewTalk, for context) sent you. Jesse is my brewing buddy and he's always stoked to shoot the ****. =)

I've heard from various sources that splashing your wort in the brewpot while it's hot is a sure-fire way of oxidizing it. Is this true? If so, could somebody explain the chemistry behind it? Why is it all right to splash when it's cool but not when it's hot?

Check out the FAQs section here. It turns out the 5 gallon water bottle thing comes up all the time, so there are existing threads that should have all the info you'll need on the subject.

Pickin' on all us poor impressionable noobs.

Hey, I was looking for a thread that dealt with general pronunciation problems, and was unable to find one, so I thought I'd start one up. If I'm undermining the integrity of an already-thriving "pronunciation thread" that I missed, forgive me. So go ahead and put down any words the...

I don't think sobriety would make that sentence any more attractive.

I throw a wet T-shirt over the carboy, then dip the tails of the shirt in two different containers of water. That way, the shirt wicks up the water from the containers and keeps the shirt moist throughout the day. It works flawlessly. As soon as I can afford it, I'm going to buy a temperature...

Throughout the boil, I am constantly scraping the sides and stirring it back into the brewpot. You certainly have nothing to lose by doing so. The more stuff in the boil, the more you'll get out of it.

I think the warmer temp thing may be it... The last batch I did was the first one that didn't have the banana flavor or aroma, and it was the first time I employed the wet T-shirt method to keep the carboy cool. Thanks! If I ever make a Banana Ale, I'll be sure to purposefully ferment it at a...

I'm not sure -- perhaps somebody can confirm or deny -- but it seems to me like stirring the hot wort as it's cooling is a bad idea... if you add too much oxygen before it's reached pitching temp, you could oxidize it (although I don't think sourness is an off flavor resulting from oxidation)...

I've brewed 8 batches to date, and 7 of them have adopted a hint of a banana aroma. Assuming it was just the esters from the yeast, I've made it a point to use different yeast strains to see if I could avoid the banana, but to no avail. I thought it might be a result of fermenting at too high...

I always use 3/4 of a cup for 5 gallons, so in my opinion, 1/2 a cup would be just fine for 4 1/4 gallons.