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I may yet live to regret this, but last weekend I had a batch that had just finished, I bottled it, gave the bucket a furious rinsing, and immediately sanitized and pitched a fresh batch into it... hope it comes out ok. Plastic looked spotless when I finished up before Starsan-ing the container.

sounds like the plan... I'm happier and more set up to wait for it to mellow in the bottle, carb'ed. Not kegging, so on and so on. Trying to brew based on conditions, so not crashing, or doing detailed temp control. When the space is in the 70's I'm brewing beers that like that. When it's...

I think if the issue is saving money, buying a stirplate might be out of scope, no? FWIW, I did 1c DME to 2c water for the starters for the dubbel and tripel I just did... figured a stronger, higher octane starter wort would be better for the yeast in that context.

Also, at 1.062, it's really NOT a tripel in terms of real strength given the added volume... so, trying to figure out how to process this frankenbrew.

Hm. With six gallons, even if I wanted to go to secondary, I don't have the carboy to handle that kind of volume. Can I just do a really long primary?

I haven't needed yeast nutrient... so far, at least. But then, I've run starters just off the wyeast activators, which may make it easier.

I don't think I need to bump the alcohol content up, no... I'm happy enough if it's not 10%. Just wondering how I change the fermentation time, and conditioning time...

A little bit of DME goes a pretty long way for making starter... it's possibly a point of false economy, given that you may royally mess up a batch, which costs more than a few cups of DME...

Yeast is Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity. I had a smack pack that seemed dead, so I replaced it, at which point the original starter finally showed activity. It took a few days extra, but since I had them both, I threw the added pack in with the two quart original starter... figuring more...

Darker from the scorching, lighter and more watery from the excess water... I have to admit quietly that I'm not generally too crazy about crazy powerful brews anyhow, so it might prove preferable... Dropped a huge bunch of yeast in and it looked fit to blow the lid off of my 7.9 gallon bucket...

Ok, so endeavoring to make a full boil of a tripel extract kit this weekend, not only did I not fully get the candi dissolved (scorched kettle bottom), I also put in too much water to start, underestimating the volume of the fermentables to be added. Long story short: instead of 5 gallons of...

yeah, they are the activator pack. They are out of the fridge now, the boil has commenced. Petite saison is bottled, today will be tripel, Wheat Beer, and another Petite Saison.

I popped three activator packs last night, planning to brew today... didn't get around to it, they are all quite puffy. Question is: is it ok if I brew and pitch tomorrow? Do I need to set them all in starters tonight, or am I ok? One of them is an extra pack for a tripel which I made a...

How long do you keep them? HOW do you keep them, while we're at it? I've got two fermenting buckets, a 6gal and a 7.9 that are both full of drowned unicorn at the moment... if I don't have to toss all the PBW that would be a treat, though I'm otherwise just going to use it to clean my kettle...

I did it just to get the labels off. They all had the originals still stuck tightly on. PBW did wonders for that, though as mentioned elsewhere... Brooklyn Brewery bottles make it look like I drowned a unicorn in the bucket; glitter EVERYWHERE from the disintegrated foil-ey labels.

I was in a meeting at work this morning, and realized that after an overnight, washing, and showering, I still have Pennant Pale Ale blue glitter on my hands.

Putting a whole mess of bottles through the PBW de-labeling treatment... all working brilliantly, but the Brooklyn bottles have the annoying habit of getting glitter all over everything... it's like a strip club in the two buckets I've used.

That creepy slipperiness seems to stick around... am I just being paranoid as well?

I've got bottles soaked in PBW now, the labels are off, and I rinsed the outside and I THINK I've rinsed the insides well. How many rinses does it take to keep the PBW from doing harm to the bottling? Bear in mind, I will be dipping them in water and then Starsan before I bottle on...

I put foil on this batch of starters for dubbel and tripel. Boiled wort each time, and left it in the hot pot to cool, with starsan squirted on the pot-lid before covering. Each time I removed foil, I spritzed it with Starsan before putting it back on... For all the junk I've had to...