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@Junkster, I have seen collars made by other members of this site. The problem for me is that I'm 5'4" and the chest freezer rim is already at waist height. It's hard as it is for me to heft the full bucket in and out of the freezer. @wiggy, just trying to increase capacity for my time! I...

My brew day two weeks ago was the most frustrating in recent memory. I had purchased a bazooka screen to put in my kettle because I wanted to use my homegrown hops, but I forgot to attach it. This resulted in an hourlong series of failed attempts to get the cooled wort from kettle to carboy, a...

The picture must not be very good. From where I'm standing taking the pic, the hump is in the back of the freezer on the right and the bottom of the bucket is just wedged between the hump and the lower bucket. If I put a strong crate or stepstool under it, it would alleviate some of the weight...

I just bought two 6-gallon buckets so I could move up to five-gallon batches. I was previously fermenting in 5-gallon carboys, and two carboys fit easily in my chest freezer. The actual dimensions of my new buckets are a little bigger than the manufacturer specs, with the result that they...

I thought this was going to be something about garden slug traps.

Brew some CDA, it'll be a tribute to your neighborhood in Cascadia!

I use a digital thermometer. It was around $25 and has that narrow probe that you can poke into meat or bread (or mash!). It was a lot more pleasant to use than a glass thermometer, and I don't worry about it breaking. I bought it for brewing purposes, but it's also a very useful tool to have...

It's always worth it to double check that you actually got the beer you were expecting. There have been times I was poured a different beer from what I ordered, and sometimes the server just doesn't know the difference. Kegs can get hooked up to the wrong line, tap handles can get put on the...

I would add, make sure your beer has finished at a FG that makes sense for your recipe. Sometimes the yeast stops fermenting before all the sugar in the wort has been converted, but when you bottle prime they wake back up. Then they consume not only the priming sugar but the remaining sugar...

Pacman Yeast?

I cover my starters with a few layers of paper towels that have been moistened with sanitizer and secure it with a rubber band. No insects will get past the rubber band and I feel like the towels can breathe better than foil. It has worked well for me so far.

I'm making two different starters for two different batches that I'm brewing Friday. The LHBS had a sale a while back so I picked up a few different varieties of yeast. I just now realized that I smacked the pack of yeast that I didn't want to activate now. Would it be better to keep it...

I picked my Centennials about two weeks ago and immediately used 12oz to wet(dry) hop an IPA before drying and bagging the rest. I bottled that last Saturday and am pretty excited based on the taste of the hydrometer sample!

Thanks for your response. These are second year plants. In the process of bagging them up last night I realized that they do have some aroma, just not nearly as much as my (also 2nd year) centennials did. From things I've read, centennials are a more potent variety anyway, so I'm not going to...

Did anyone grow willamettes who would care to comment on their level of aroma? I'm just starting to bag mine up and I'm surprised that they don't have very much smell. I harvested and dried the centennials last week, and those were so much more potent. I definitely didn't harvest too...

I've used 3711 twice, and both times my beer finished at 1.002, which is consistent with other members on this forum. That should give you a good idea of when it's done. Edit: I guess it would also depend on your mash, but you can expect it to go pretty low.

OP, I notice you're in Petaluma. Moonlight Brewing up in Windsor has been releasing gruits every now and then for the last few years, and I've loved the ones I've been lucky enough to sample. I wouldn't necessarily describe any of them as "dessert beers", they're really herbal beers, an older...

"A hole in the ground keeps the fermenter cool". At least they practice good temperature control!

All the previous posts have brought up good points. One thing I'll add is that if a brewery is concerned about the reselling of their limited releases by unauthorized sellers, they could prevent it by offering limited releases only on tap at their facility, or opening the bottle at the point of...

I use my auto siphon as a thief. It's longer than a turkey baster, which is good for me since I ferment in carboys. Just be ready with your hydrometer jar, because it will drip. If you don't yet have an auto siphon, I highly recommend one!