Search results

How long has it been fermenting? If you've pitched and it has been 24 hours then the yeast is already stressed and already produced flavors that you may not want. Time is essential right now. I wouldn't bother with a starter as that will take another day to get ready. If it were me I would...

I just did a saison. I used wyeast's french saison yeast. I pitched at 65 degrees and let it work its way to 75 degrees. The O.G. was 1.060. After one week I took a reading and it was 1.006. I decided to crash cool the beer and keg it. This beer has a unique flavor to it. This is one of...

I batch sparge and if I batch sparge to fast I will get terrible efficiency. Slow up the sparge and the efficiency goes up. Also, check your math to verify you actually got a low efficiency. If it were me I would leave it alone. It sounds like you have a tasty session beer. If you do add...

I had a pretty low efficiency when starting out. I was averaging 60%. I changed the rate of draining my mash tun from as fast as I can to taking 20-30 minutes to drain my mash tun and another 20 minutes to drain my sparge water. This increased my efficiency to 75%. I guess the moral of the...

Normally when talking efficiencies you are talking about brewhouse efficiency or extraction efficiency. The brewhouse efficiency takes into account your entire system and your process and determines how efficient it is. It looks at how much sugar is extracted from your grain, how much water...

For the beer you are making with an older vial of yeast Mr. Malty is saying you need 5 gallons of wort to produce the amount of yeast required to adequately ferment your beer. It doesn't say pour the entire 5 gallons into your beer. Normally you would cold crash your starter so all the yeast...

GO STATE! I'm a MSU grad, class of 2001. Good luck with your beer making!

Nice to know there isn't a reaction. Do you use a carboy brush on the better bottles or do you just do a 24 hour soak in PBW?

The only way to be sure you're done fermenting is with the same FG reading for a few days in a row. The OG reading is important because with it you can guesstimate your FG reading. The attenuation that is associated with the yeast is key in determining a FG. If you bottle before fermentation...

I cracked a glass carboy a month ago. I literally bumped on the counter as I was cleaning the carboy. I was being careful but s#!t happens. I bought another glass carboy. The reason for buying another glass carboy is because I read where PBW reacts with better bottles and creates pits in the...

170F is normally for all grain brewers. What that temp is suppose to do is make the sugars in the mash more viscous so when you collect your sparge water there should be more sugars in the sparge water. This helps with efficiency.

I had sips of beer growing up. It isn't an integrity thing it is a moment shared with your kid. Most people use it as a teaching moment. Hell, if you were tasked with upholding the law because you live to a higher standard then you would be busting people for spitting on the sidewalks. Im...

I second that! Originally I'm from Michigan. I moved to Mass over two years ago. Every time I got into a car I thought I was going to fight someone. I realized with that mind set I was going to fight the entire state of Massachusetts. Luckily I got use to the Massholes and they don't bother...

My wife gave me a clorox bottle and a mop and told me to clean up after I brew. I'm so lucky.

I have to agree with Sam. He is defending his blood sweat and tears and it isn't really defending it as it is clarifying that something doesn't necessarily suck because you don't like it. I'm sure I would get a ton of flack if I said all fruit beers suck and any brewery who produces it is...

Welcome aboard! We are practically neighbors. Im brewing in Reading, MA! You'll learn a ton from these forums. I like to think I know alot about brewing but every time I come here I learn something new! Have fun!

I use iodopher as well. Normally I scrub the inside of the bottle with iodopher solution to verify all the nasties have been scrubbed out and then I put them on a drying rack. Very seldom are the bottles completely dry before I bottle. I've never had off flavors or infection due to the bottles.

A couple things can be going on. 1. You could not be mixing the grain enough with the strike water. If that is the case then you will get hot and cold pockets in your mash tun. Normally I stir in the grain for a minimum 5 minutes. 2. Your thermometer could be off. Can you calibrate it? If...

You can do a open top ferment without infecting your beer. Some breweries do it as well as some homebrewers. Leave the top off your fermenter until you see fermentation subsiding then snap the lid on. It gives your beer a different characteristic.

Welcome back!