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Yeast eat simple sugars. Sucrose is a disaccharide and the yeast bugs have a special enzyme which breaks the bond of the glucose and fructose molecules. Westmalle uses 15 - 20% of the FERMENTABLES as sucrose with the balance from Pilsner malt. They use Tettnang, saaz, and Styrian Goldings. I...

Some time back I wrote a series of articles on SMALL & SESSION beers. Reduced alcohol beers have a definite place in this world. To keep things in perspective, most global beer cultures think of beers in the 5.5% to 6% abv range as “strong” beers. Sometimes you simply want to drink a number...

Don't worry, it's just a tad more protein. A good hot break should correct the situation.

Such sugars provide color, flavor, and fermentables. To avoid adding little "beasties" to your wort, add to boil at least 10 min. before knock out. If you're brewing something light in color, a longer boil will develop a darker shade that you might not want.

Using yeast nutrient in an all-grain wort is completely unnecessary. I do use it in my starters on the stir plate. However, if you makes you happy or more confident, it can't really hurt to add it to all of your worts.

I had a Sanwald beer in Germany which I thought was rather bad.

The last 5 gallon batch I did was a Wit. I added 1 oz. with 5 minutes left in the boil, and 1 oz. at knock-out with a 10 minute steep.

I've used dried Hibiscus several times but have always dumped it into the boil with about 5 - 10 minutes left. There was plenty of color, flavor, and aroma.

Sounds to me like you either don't aerate your wort or don't aerate enough. Yeast really needs O2 in about 8 - 11 ppm which takes a lot of shaking.

I didn't offer that as a real mathematical formula. These are the components of a mash. Each has a major effect on the overall performance of the mashing. If you focus on what's important, many of your problems tend to vanish.

water to grist ratio X temperature X mash pH X time = mash efficiency. Go back over the formula; something is out of kilter. As far as the grist, it was always touted that the crush should reduce the average grain kernel to about 5 pieces. These days too many want to reduce the grain bill to...

There's an old German technique of cleaning wort by using a trubsack. I use a fine mesh nylon bag to line my hopback and strain the chilled wort into the fermenter. I've been doing it this way for 30 years. Of all the possible disasters which might or could happen, none have.

Have you ever checked your hydrometer for accuracy? If it's reading okay, try mashing at a higher temp; say 158 to 160 and see what that does.

The purpose of the mash-out is oft times explained as “stopping all enzymic action”, “denaturing the enzymes” or “killing the enzymes.” It does this but the boil they’ll shortly endure should take care of the “killing” part. Raising the mash to a mash-out temp decreases the viscosity of the...

I'd like to read more about that; especially because my tongue and throat didn't get the news.

Another thing to consider is the co-humulone level of the hops you buy. It they're over about 34% of the alpha acid, look elsewhere. I quit using Cascade hops even before I realized that they run about 39 to 42% of the alpha acids. They are like trying to swallow hack saw blades. Cascade...

Buying hops from the major producers/distributors is certainly the way to go. However, the real problem is not oxidation, it's how well they are treated during transport. If they sit in a box on a shipping dock in the sun, they can be damaged beyond hope. Continue buying in pounds but do it...

https://crescentcitybrewtalk.com/nuclear-steam-generator/ They keep telling me to think out or the box.

I guess I'm a retro kind of guy. My favorite IPA uses Centennial and Amarillo. I get a very clean bitterness and aroma.

The hops you use all have fairly low co-humulone levels. The hop bite and grassiness isn't coming strictly from your choice of hops (apparently). That pretty much leaves contact time post fermentation. On the other hand, a good friend of mine loads his dry hops in the keg and quits...