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short answer - no you may not legally make moonshine or other distilled spirits without a license. Long Answer There are 3 types of alcohol recognized by the Fed's (and I think all states). At the Federal level, there is Beer a product of natural fermentation made with malt (aka barley)...

Neil Gaiman mentions them in American God's. Pretty good book if you are into Neil Gaiman.

LOL, ok then that makes sense. Welcome. And wait until you decide to program your raspberry pi do monitor you fermentations, how much is left in your kegorator, etc... then it will be a computer related hobby again :)

Welcome. And what do you mean by "non technical hobby" ... that definition might or might not include brewing.

Count me in.

Even if it is a base, you could probably still get a reaction - the problem is that either acids or bases create a more electrically charged solution than distilled water, heck the addition of salt (NaCl) allows for more ionic water than pure water. With a charged solution, you'd get movement...

What is your OG and FG? My highest OG I think was about at 1.070. I can't recall. I do recall that I let it sit in the bottle for 8 weeks before I felt it had carbonated sufficiently. So give it time on the carbonating side.

Infected beers usually taste sour, not sweet. How did you add sugar for carbonation? Is there some way it could have been uneven? (extra sugar could explain both sweet and gusher). Typically people dissolve bottling sugar in some hot water and then add that to the bottling bucket either...

OP said FIRST beer was .02 off, not the one he is asking for help here. This beer he gave us specific numbers (og 1.066, fg 1.022 expected 1.014) which makes it .008 off. Agreed .008 is still way off and should qualify as 'stuck'. I'd personally expect a 1.016 so ok .006 off, still a...

OP - most yeast will give you a 75% reduction in Gravity on the malt. if you start with a 1.066, you should expect to finish with at 1.016 ( 16 is about 25% of 66). You should not expect to get to a 1.008 This gets a little fuzzy if you use sugar (table, corn, honey, maple syrup, etc)...

If you under pitched, one thing that could have happened is a stall... 1.072 down to 1.024, unless you had a lot of unfermentables, means that about a .006 for most yeast types remained unfermented...*** When you move from fermenter to fermenter, you push out some CO2, and thus allow the...

OP- The question to ask yourself as you look at the links from unionrdr is what sort of diy is your dad? Is his idea of say getting a bookself, buying one all done from the store? going to IKEA or the like and following directions? or does he pull out his tablesaw and build from scratch...

Very true. Cool temps - like in the 50's if you can swing it. Cider is basically a low alcohol wine when you think about it - fermented fruit juice. skunked flavors in beer come from breakdown of the hops molecules - usually through UV light, but age is a factor because short UV light is...

I'm in for the Belgian Triple Ale Extract recipe (with the trapist yeast)

yeah I have this problem, wish there were a NSWF in the title to know if it is or not.

Anyone know why a keg kept outside in the cold, possibly freezing temps, stored empty (no liquids) couldn't be used? I think maybe a seal/gasket might need replacing, but I can't see any long term harm to the keg itself? Has anyone done this?

I don't think that the squeezing of the grain bag is the problem. The astringency comes from high temps on the grain - that is over typical mash temps. And it happens with extract brewing also, if you use grains. Basically the higher temps cause tanins (bitterness) to come out of the grains -...

Yes, so that could save time - less water to heat at the start, however many people report that full boil with extract has a better flavor than partial boil. I don't know if I've seen the 'blind taste test' on that, or it is just peoples impression of the taste

The rule of thumb is 75%... so if you started with a OG of 1.084, you'd finish about 1.021 Now there are something about this as a rule of thumb, each yeast finishes differently. The yeast manufacturers publish what the Attenuation is - 75% is typical, but it can be as low as 65% and as high...

in terms of sugar, honey is closer to 100% fermentable, possibly 105%.... unless you overload the yeast, all the honey will ferment.