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I don't mean to be a jerk, but I'd question your readings here. 1.050 sounds about right for an OG. 1.020 is a little high for an SG, you may have had a stuck ferment. But there is no way it went up from 1.020 to 1.120 (perhaps you mean 1.012?). It's just a guess but I'd say your hydrometer...

I have read Designing Great Beers extensively, it is one of my favorite books, however, the BU:GU ratio is not the only indicator of style. I can have the same BU:GU ratio and use completely different grains or hops and achieve a completely different style. Having read the book I understand...

Foaming from picnic taps often occurs if you are not opening the tap all the way. When using picnic taps I make sure to set my psi to a serving pressure rather than a carbing pressure, hold the tap as high as I can, and open it all the way even if I get some initial foam.

Invest in a thief. It's basically a tube used to pull a sample from the fermenter. You sanitize the thief, pull the sample, put sample in the tube the hydrometer comes in, add hydrometer, and get your reading. You can get a cheap thief from the same company that make the auto-siphon.

I might be wrong but most commercial operations filter their beer so there would be no real benefit to aging after fermentation anyway. They also have significantly more control over the entire process and are able to pitch larger amounts of yeast which might contribute to the faster brew...

Sounds to me like a bit of the extract twang. I switched to all extra light DME and use steeping grains to get flavor and color and this problem vanished from my beers. I will give a +1 to what Forrest said and tell you that I did not get the twang from the 2 kit beers I bought from him when I...

Some folks add a bit of hops right at flameout; typically done for aroma, maybe a touch of flavor.

I break mine down each time, it's just not all that difficult and I am a stickler for cleanliness around my brews. I'm sure you could get away with just running cleaner and sanitizer through though.

I use cocoa powder but it is a PITA and can make a big mess if you aren't careful. I've heard lots of folks use the nibs but I haven't tried them myself so I couldn't say. Shavings might be a good way to go but will take longer to dissolve.

Porter British IPA Northern Brown Ordinary Bitter Scottish ESB

+1. You want to keep those temps between 60 and 70 degrees for most ales. I highly recommend the swamp bucket method detailed by Revvy.

Don't touch it! 7 days is too early to move out of primary anyway. Leave it alone, rack to secondary when you get back.

I'd go Fuggles but that's because I prefer the UK hops to their American counterparts.

+1 As long as I am employed at my current job my day to day budget will not be affected by the current financial mess so I'll keep on spending within that budget. Now, if the current financial mess leads to me being unemployed, then I will probably cut way back on brewing (or I might just...

Sounds like the instructions you are reading are fairly generic. I'd leave it at least 2 full weeks in primary, 3 weeks if you don't plan to secondary. Once you bottle I would give it 30 days at a minimum but nothing says you can't sample a bottle here and there during that time.

Circling a word and placing question marks next to it is not meaningless doodles. It is a generally accepted method of copy-editing notation. If you are confused as to why your paper was marked that way, go and ask the teacher, it is not the teacher's responsibility to write a novel about why...

1) Your airlock activity time sounds completely normal to me, I've had it last as little as 24 hours. 2) 78 degrees is a bit high, so is 72 imo. I try to keep my fermentations around 65 for ales. That said, it won't wreck your beer. You may get just a touch of esther production leading to a...

Oh man, these are great, next time I bottle for gifts I'll be using them.

Personally I'd speak to the teacher and find out what they were trying to communicate. Circling a word and using question marks is copy-editing shorthand for saying either "I don't understand this word" or "I don't understand why you used this word here". While it is entirely possible that the...

Book flight to San Francisco. Rent Car. Drive 1 hour north to Petaluma.