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Just checked on the beer after putting in seven roasted peppers - six jalapeños and one habanero. It's good, but lacking any real heat. On the plus side, it smells and tastes like a pepper. I followed the advice and took out the insides of each. I'm going to add a half jalapeño with seeds and...

I'm moving a blonde ale over to secondary in the next day or two and I want to rack it on top of peppers. I used an Austin Brew blonde kit and was thinking of doing jalapenos. Does anyone have experience or thoughts on the best amount for a five gallon batch or preparation? I was going to use...

Thanks all for the notes. This was me being curious/paranoid more than anything, and it all makes sense.

I'm going to bottle today and I'm using Cooper's Drops at the suggestion of a friend. Do I need to sanitize them before dropping them in a bottle? I saw another thread where someone said they just sanitize a pair of tweezers before plucking one at a time from the bag. There doesn't seem to be a...

Ahh, then I won't worry. I used a recipe kit from Northern Homebrew: Dark Cherry Stout Extract Kit w/ Specialty Grains : Northern Brewer I didn't even think about the fact I'd be stealing yeast away from the mix when I did the reading. It's certainly not a big deal, so I'll adjust for the next...

So I racked my first homebrew into the secondary fermenter about six days ago. I checked on the hydrometer reading today and right now it has it at ~4 percent alcohol for a stout. I was hoping to hit at least 5 percent. I know some threads have criticized the reading you may get from a...

I've got a 6 gallon glass carboy used for primary. I've got a regular bung/air lock for the carboy, but also the large, plastic blow off tube in case I need it. I would have the extra gallon of space in the fermenter, but I suppose I could also set the wort level at 4.5 gallons.

So say I take my blow off tube, put it in the top of my glass carboy and place some sanitized aluminum around it to better "insulate" it. Would that be good enough for the primary fermentation? I just want to take the most careful route that doesn't involve my carboy exploding.

This raises a good question for me: I'm planning a double IPA and expect some violent fermentation. In addition, I'm going to add pasteurized honey 2-3 days in. I expect it to create a possible air lock issue, so I expect to use a blow off tube. Would it just be easier to not put the air lock...

This is very helpful ... Thanks very much. I'd love to do a beer with honey as an additive next and I've been reading up on it. After that, fruit. When sanitizing fruit with star san, does that strip any flavor?

What about "exotic" ingredients ... like if I wanted to add apricot to a wheat ale in the second fermenter?

On another thread, I asked about the best way to introduce cocoa nibs to my 2nd fermenter. Someone noted it'd be good to soak in vodka for a day to release flavor and sanitize. For any ingredient added to that stage, would it need to be sanitized somehow? So if I wanted to add fresh hops, for...

Would this work with other options? If I were to sanitize a metal container , drop in the nibs and soak in Bailey's or something lime that? I imagine I'd then take the nibs and drop them in the 2nd fermenter and rack on top?

Hi all, Long time, first time. After much procrastinating, I'm making my first brew next week. For the second fermentation, I bought cocoa nibs to add to a stout. I was curious - will I just need to dump them into the fermenter before or after I siphon the beer from 1st into 2nd?