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Made a 4-gal variation of the 090909 Barleywine last Friday. My 3rd all-grain, and first barleywine. Small grain tweaking, and some hops substitutions. Bubbling strong since Saturday. Ended up quite happy with my mashing results. I had the recipe in Beersmith set at 61% efficiency (no, I...

SG was at 1.002 when I transferred to secondary onto the vanilla beans. That was 3 weeks ago. Been slowly clearing ever since. It's a DEEEP, DEEP red color.

Start with hot water, finish before it cools. Oxyclean has usually done it's job before the water cools. It's after that you start to get a film. Delabeling bottles is a 30 minutes process for me. Usually about 12 bottles in a 3 gallon bucket, 3/4 scoop of Oxyclean and hot water to cover...

Commonly referred to as "air"

How much honey did you use? I just mixed up a similiar batch. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f80/cherry-vanilla-melomel-161411/ I stirred the bejeezuz out of mine when I started the batch on 2/5. I did swirl the bucket on the 9th before a nutrient addition. I just picked it up by the handle...

Just started this one. 12lbs local wildflower honey 35oz Mountain Ridge Honey (darker than the local wildflower) 1lb buckwheat honey 2-cans Oregon Fruit Puree Sweet Cherry Puree Water to 6 gallons 2-pkgs Lalvin EC-1118 rehydrated in 80 deg water with some Yeast Energizer 5tsp Fermax yeast...

Do some searching around and you'll see lots of posts about the Munton's tabs not dissolving completely, but still good results. You'll need to take the DME and heading powder into consideration when deciding to use them. While fine in a beer, they may be less desirable in a hard cider...

I get my bulk wildflower locally for $2.50/lb in gallon jugs ($30/gallon or 12lb)

Archer Farms is the store brand for grocery items at Target stores. Found out that the local Super-Target's stock Archer Farms Orange Blossom and Buckwheat honey along with the wildflower (all $5/lb) I'm guessing Western Buckwheat. More molasses and less barnyard in the nose. I've got...

Which Musselmans are you using? I use the 100% premium not-from concentrate. My graff has cleared out nicely and a hard cider and cherry-apple cyser with at are both crystal clear. But an Apple-Cinnamon Cyser is still pretty cloudy. But I think I used some pectic enzyme in all but the...

Yes, you'd be better off with a bench capper. I'll throw in a shameless plug for the Colonna Capper/Corker. The dual-mode model comes with the 26.5, and 29mm bells as well as a funnel and plunger for corking wine bottles. There's also enough reference on people using them for corking belgians.

Got to the "Carboys" menu on the left and select the size you want. I use a 6 gallon for primary, a 5 for secondary (when I secondary), and I've got a collection of 3's for Mead.

Miloa, You need to stop thinking only in terms of % ABV. Given an acceptable environment, yeast will consume the sugar available up to their tolerance level. Saying natural yeast takes it to 10-11% doesn't mean much without the final gravity. Without FG, we don't know if it really did conk...

I've seen a couple posts about people topping off with the fog from dry ice. Not a bad idea, if you've got the dry ice.

Lady-killer? That much sugar I'd call it the Diabetic's Nightmare.

Stabilize and use the top-up as a little bit of backsweetening. I ferment in a bucket and make sure I've got plenty to get up into the neck of the BetterBottle. When I rack, I normally have to add under 4oz of fluid to get back to that level. So I've never much cared about fermentation...

I just bottled and capped a 5-gal batch yesterday morning. Even with the 2nd-press on every bottle, I was still done in no time. Although I did take a HUGE gamble with this batch. Did 1/2 in twist off bottles. Wish me luck! BBBF, I'm pushing #8 corks with little effort at all (compared to...

Yes, the Colonna deserves another new thread. Corked a batch of mead into bottles the other weekend. The only way that the Colonna could have made it easier, is if it supplied someone else to pull the lever. Loving this thing. My LHBS has the capper-only model for sale. It is downright...

What is your actual gravity reading? That will tell us at least how much sugar is left. Saying 12% but slightly sweet is fine on a final product, but granularity in the readings will really help you gauge where things are at during the ferment. And will really help us help you diagnose what...

Stirring it does have a degassing effect, but it's mainly to put any viable yeast from the lees back into suspension to continue working. The nutrients have millions of nucleation points that can cause rapid (even explosive) degassing. Thats the reaction that you got. Think Mentos in Diet...