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3.3 pounds LME is just a hair shy of 1.5 kilograms. No doubt that's the reason Briess uses it: it's an ordinary size everywhere but the US.

Don't know the gravity. Tilt reads 0.999, but I can see the yeast caked on it, so I know it's reading a bit low.

I brewed my first saison on July 30th (1.052 OG, partial mash plus extract). For yeast, I used a packet of Belle Saison. The initial ferment went fine and after about a week it settled down to a slow but steady stream of fine bubbles (it's in a glass carboy, so easy to watch). Since then, the...

You can use a computer, but it's not hard to calculate. One pound of liquid malt in one gallon of water is 1.036 gravity (36 PPG). It varies a bit with efficiency, but ballpark one pound of malt in one gallon of water should get you to about 1.025--1.029 gravity (25-29 PPG). Dividing, the...

The big difference between cider and beer is that the yeast takes forever to drop (unless you use finings). I can have clear beer in 1 week, for cider it's more like 4 months. If you bottle, it will still clear, but now the yeast is at the bottom of your bottle. That's the real advantage to...

It might still work in terms of volumes (I'm a physicist, not a chemist), but it's a lot easier to just work with weights. Let's make up some numbers. Suppose you start with 10g of alcohol in 100g of solution (i.e., 90g of water) so your starting ABW is 10%. You then remove 50g of water (in...

Ragus sells their invert both as a liquid and a solid block. For the solid, they've added sugar to the invert (glucose I think) to recrystallize it. The details are on the Ragus website.

Just try all the ones you can (easily) get your hands on. Decide which ones you like and why, then work on re-creating it. It's beer -- if it tastes good, then it is good.

It's just chemistry: converting sugar to alcohol gives off heat, and that causes the temperature to rise. The faster the yeast eat, the faster heat is produced. In the fermenter, the liquid temperature is a balancing act. On the one hand, heat is released through the walls to the outside. On...

Something with Kviek yeast? Juniper branches are part many of the old farmhouse ales, probably they would go well together. I'm thinking base it off your favorite pale ale recipe, but replace the flavor and aroma additions with juniper.

It was a slow fermentation (my first time re-pitching yeast) and I thought I could smell a bit of lactic acid when I racked it off the gross lees, but now it's official: I have my first infected cider. It's a bit washed out in the picture, but definitely there. Oh well, I guess I'll just wait...

To continue the digression, no hydrometer reads Plato, Brix, or potential ABV. Hydrometers measure specific gravity (which is equivalent to density in g/ml). Plato and Brix are concentrations (grams of sugar per 100 ml of solution). While there are tables that let you convert from one to the...

Relax. Don't worry. Have a homebrew!

As a rule of thumb, 3 lb DME = 5 lb grain as far as gravity is concerned. Throwing your recipe into my spreadsheet, though, as-is it has barely enough diastatic power to mash the other grains though (I get 34.8 L). You'll have to modify it to get a workable partial mash recipe. I would...

You were asking about ingredients. Wahl and Henius's "American Handy-Book of the Brewing, Malting, and Auxiliary Trades" (1901) has a lot of information on pre-prohibition US brewery practice. That's only 20 years after your brewery was founded, so it should be pretty relevant. The book is...

Fermentation doesn't have to be 100% done when you rack. You just want to get the cider off the bulk of the yeast (the gross lees). Once the airlock mostly stops bubbling, you can rack it at any time (don't wait for it to clear, that can take a few months). It's only when you want to bottle...

If you boil off one gallon, you'll concentrate the sugars into the remaining wort and raise your gravity proportionally. 53 * (5/4) = 66 or 1.066 and you measured 1.070. Sounds like yes, you did in fact boil off a bit more than a gallon (assuming you started with exactly five).

I've only made one mead, cider is more my taste. Having said that, yes, that is how I personally brew. You get the convenience of the bucket during active fermentation and the benefits of glass during the longer aging phase. The racking is also a chance to get the mead (cider) off the gross...

It takes time for yeast to spoil (autolysis). If you're only going to be in the bucket for a month, it's not worth the risk of racking. For something like a mead or cider that will be around for a while, the bigger issue is exposure to air, specifically oxygen. A full carboy has very little...

I always get a bit of a sulfur smell at the end of fermentation (when the yeast have started to run out of sugars to eat). It's always gone away after a day or two. I only worry about sulfur if it happens at the beginning of fermentation, during the growth phase of the yeast.