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The beer won't be fantastic, but its about enjoying the fruits of your labor, so have the Christmas celebration but save a few bottles and test them over the next year and you'll see how the flavor progresses. It's a good way to fine tune your process for this beer and next time you'll know how...

If you want a higher abv, boost the amount of extract. Also, you may be able to grab a couple extra points if you steep the crystal at 150-160, meaning don't add them to the water until it reaches that temp range.

With the ingredients and the amounts of each, I think you'd end up with an OG around 1.036, so 1.032 isn't terrible. You're not mashing so there isn't a whole lot you can change.

I second the swamp cooler method. If you keep your house around 68 you don't really even need to put ice in the bucket. Just fill a bucket with some water, sit your fermenter down in it, get a towel wet and wrap the fermenter. The ambient air temp around 68 should keep the fermentation below 80...

Don't know if anyone is still subscribed to this or is still reading but I found a happy medium. Seems to be the ideal solution for me. The Ranco dual stage temp controller. You plug a cooling unit in one outlet, and a heating unit in another. So you're able to create a dead space between the...

I think what I'm tasting is in part what unionrdr is takling about with malt flavors, not quite strong enough, which allows me to taste more of the yeast in the beer. This makes some sense. I'm going to bite the bullets and let the oktoberfest (late blooming, I know but first lager so) and brown...

I like that description. They do seemed confused.

I've brewed about 10 extract and 5 AG batches so far, I'd say nearly all have a similar characteristic. I describe it as sweet, but it's not fruit-estery sweet and I don't think it's along the lines of acetaldehyde green apple flavor; so I can't pinpoint it. The last 2 beers I've made were AG...

Curious as to how people would describe the flavor of "green" beer? Also, how would you describe a "yeasty" beer? Do the two flavors coincide?

Thanks to everyone for the info, can't wait to dig into them. Much appreciated, happy brewing.

Definitely read John Palmer. I keep that close by but I was hoping to dig even deeper into the science that he talks about in his book. Thanks for the other suggestions. Are those others pretty scientific? As in... Do they explain why or how, thru science, a particular part of brewing became...

I'm looking for some good reads to increase my knowledge on the various sciences involved with brewing. Can anyone recommend a good, relevant book on yeast, also one that talks about the science during the mash, and another that maybe talks about recipe building and how each ingredient is best...

So Vlad, what do you recommend?

So I did a little test run this morning...the controller is set at 70, differential at 1, and asd at 1. When I got to my freezer, the controller temp was at 69 and the freezer motor was off. I pulled the probe from the water bottle, placed it in my hand for a few seconds and warmed it up to 76...

Thanks both for the comments. I didn't get a chance to check on it today but tomorrow ill watch and see when the freezer motor shuts off. I thought about the latent cooling an thought that could be it. I will keep testing an may just have to send it back. Talked to Williams brewing and they said...

I've got it set to cooling. The interior of the freezer in the off position is above my target, it sits at like 75, so I plugged in the controller and set it to 68 and it kicked the freezer on but it didn't stop cooling once it hit the target plus diff. It continued to drop the temp to 60...

I found an old chest freezer and i plugged the controller up and put my fermenter in the freezer, taped the controller probe to the side of the fermenter with a piece of styrofoam insulating it from the ambient air. I set the controller to 68 with a diff of 3 and an asd of 1. The controller let...

Great advice. Much appreciated. Gonna give it a go today with1.052 OG and see how she does. This is what I love about brewing, so many unknowns and when you think you've got a good handle on it, there's always more to learn.

Thanks, that's the info I was looking for. I'll eventually pick up a flow meter but I needed this knowledge for the time being. Much appreciated.

Haven't been getting as strong of a fermentation as I would like so I bought a simple o2 regulator and .5 micron stone. Also got one of the disposable red o2 cylinders. There's no meter or anything on the regulator, I'm able to control flow to an extent but have no idea to what LPM value. Anyone...