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O'Douls? Man, you're way too hard on yourself. You'll be hard pressed to make anything that devoid of flavor... Cheers

Typically, yes, but the flow through the airlock is a better indicator. Two weeks sounds like plenty of time for a Wit...

Yeast is always going to be your biggest unknown - it is a living organism, after all. Pitching large, healthy populations will avoid all sorts of woes. Having a tasty hydrometer sample is a good sign!

TBM, Wow - looks like a success -thanks for the follow-up. I think it's OK to enjoy the process, but enjoying it more than the end product? That's a novel concept... Cheers!

Rousing the yeast and adding more yeast are both pretty unintrusive, so they would be good to try first. 1.030 is a bit high, but it implies ~65% apparent attenuation. That is within the conceivable range. How fermentable do you expect this wort to be? White Labs says 68-76% for German Lager...

That is a lot of priming sugar for the volume... but the problem is probably with the yeast. The fact that it seems to have started to carbonate is a good sign. Your idea to shake the bottles and wait is best. If that doesn't work, and you do decide the open the bottles, it's less painful to add...

You're right in the RDWHAHB conclusion that a little oxygen is nothing to worry about, but a couple of the details aren't quite right. Ideally, during carbonation, the yeast is fermenting the priming sugar, not reproducing. So there is no guarantee that they will scavage any...

That's not unusual. With good yeast treatment, it should be up to the task of carbonating. What vespabrew is asking about is insurance. If you've ever had a barleywine or Tripel that didn't carbonate, you'll realize that a Safale packet is really cheap insurance.

There's no single best answer to this. The advice is given because a high-gravity ferment like a Tripel can leave the yeast so depleted it won't wake up. I don't know about the 3 days - I think it's fine to add it any time, including in the bottling bucket, as long as it's re-hydrated. It also...

If it's the larger-size pack, and your batch is 5 gallons, you can get by without a starter for a normal-gravity ale like a brown. If you make a starter, it surely doesn't care whether you make it from LME or DME - just shoot for a gravity of 1.020 or so.

Was SG the only difference? I don't think higher SG should give you more yeast - usually growth is limited by oxygen availability.

The flavor sample between primary and secondary differ from that of the final brew. It's really just an indicator of whether your beer is on track (not infected, or other gross problems). After the yeast do the post-ferment clean-up, you carbonate, cool, and age (for the time it takes to do all...

Steeping Grains: 1) Recipe actually calls for 6oz Caramunich and 3oz Caraaroma, can't source these easily in the UK so have substituted Crystal. How much difference will this make? It will surely make some difference, but I think Crystal would be more authentic for an English Ale (caveat...

Your hop profile is already very different from the original ... maybe for the better, who knows. So, WTF, why not dry hop? This is a great experiment, and when you grow the hops you will have to experiment anyway, because you will not know the %AA, and the flavor/aroma characteristics of your...

Wow, this is really a crazy idea. I like it. I wouldn't worry about sugars or tannins. As you know, the native bacteria act pretty quickly. I think the main goal would be to knock back the bacteria and dry as quickly as possible. How about this: At the end of the sparge, add some more water...

I think my boil kettle is similar to yours - I do end up with a fair amount of crud going into my primary. My previous system was a home-made RIMS, and the wort going into the primary was absolutely crystal clear. However, as far as I can tell, the quality of the final beer is just as good, if...

You mean Northern Brewer? Sure - go for it. I'd recommend using recipe formulation software to make sure you get a reasonably balanced recipe.

I would pitch more yeast - my guess is that this was under-pitched or that the yeast was stressed in some way. First, I'd try a couple packets of your favorite dry yeast first. If that doesn't help, the second step would be to get a vigorous starter going, and pitch that. As for taste, if it...

OK. So I had a look at the wine making instructions for this, and it looks like it is a bigger source of sugar than I thought. It says 1 can should make 1 gallon of 1.090 must. That implies 30 p/p/g x 3 lb. You should be able to enter that into your recipe calculator. I'm not familiar with...

Your starter will be more forgiving than you might think. If you're just pushing out a week, I'd just use the starter as-is. The longer you push the brew date, the more you might consider refrigerating the starter. Making a step-up to the starter similar to the first one would be a good idea