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Yeah, 76 degrees is a little warm. No matter what the instructions that came with your kit say, leave it in the primary for a while (2 weeks min). This will give the yeast time to clean up any off-flavors that may have been produced. I'm sure everything will be fine, but give the yeast plenty of...

Are you fermenting in a bucket or a carboy? If you're fermenting in a bucket, I bet the seal around the lid isn't tight anymore and I wouldn't worry about it at all. As many folks on this forum will tell you, airlocks aren't a very good indicator of fermentation. Best of luck!

If I came across as a jerk I didn't mean it like at all. I wasn't trying to criticize you or your process. I simply meant that with more information, people would be able to help you more.

I'm a little confused because you seem to contradict yourself. You say the beer is too sweet, yet you're worried because you mashed too low and the beer is 'a bit thin an lacking in body', which to me is quite the opposite of sweet. Also, be careful - 'fruity' and 'sweet' are not the same thing...

Mangrove Jack's M79 Burton Union is a good yeast, but be careful. In my experience it can go from pleasant fruitiness to intense, dominating banana character with just a small increase in temperature.

Wim we must have been writing posts at the same time - looks like we have a few of the same questions...

Much appreciated Guzzibrew. It's a pretty sturdy/flexible garbage can, so hopefully I won't have a disaster like that. I think the heater will automatically turn itself off when not submerged, too. As to cooling in summer, I was just at a second hand place looking at fridges. Couldn't find...

If it's just a few floaters, I'm sure it won't make any difference whatsoever. When I first read the post I pictured a wine thief full of trub.

Pretty sure we agree entirely.

No, unfortunately it doesn't do that - although keeping your carboy in plain old water does help to keep the temp down, and constant, when the weather starts to warm up a little. I'm still trying to find a very economical way (I also don't have a lot of space) to keep my fermenter cool, because...

I brew with what I call a 'modified swamp cooler'. It's about as simple as it gets, but it works perfectly. I have a 60l plastic garbage can with a lid that I put my 6.5 gallon carboy into. I pour water around the carboy, and I have an aquarium heater to keep that water at whatever temperature I...

I posted before I saw that picture. You'll get an accurate reading with that.

It's best to have as clean a sample as possible when taking readings. Too much trub and it will definitely throw off your reading. Generally speaking, if you're having trouble getting a reading without a bunch of suspended yeast and trub in it - there's no reason to even take a reading yet...

I'm sure ginger would be fantastic in beer! I was just trying to think of crazy ingredients and that's the best I could come up with at the time... Anyway, yes 'informed innovation' is exactly what I was getting at.

I agree with you. But I'll add that I think it's very important for new brewers to become comfortable with more 'traditional' brewing methods and ingredients before 'rocking the boat'. It's important to learn how different base malts, specialty malts, hops, yeasts and water profiles work and...

Assuming primary fermentation was complete, you should be good.

In the spirit of RDWHAHB, I thought it would be interesting to start a thread in the Beginner's Forum about off-flavors that you've experienced that either dissipated or disappeared entirely - with a little hope and patience. The hardest skill to master in homebrewing is patience (I've far...

This screams oxidation to me. What exactly is your procedure for getting the beer into the bottles?

(...also, make sure you leave that one on the yeast cake for at least a couple of days after it reaches terminal gravity so it can clean up diacetyl).

It looks absolutely normal. Pitch it, it's fine.