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I'm not too sure what to think about these hops balls. I got two of them because of their stainless steel design, which makes them durable and easy to clean. Their description says they can hold up to 1 oz of hops, but I can barely pack more than a half ounce of leaf hops in one, and with the...

Makes me wonder if some hops are more floaty than others. lol

I use those hops balls and I about popped my lid when I went to put the flavor hops into the boil and the damn thing popped open, spilling my pellet hops all into my brew. It's good to know that it's not such a big deal, but I learned that you can skim the majority of that off the top of the...

I'm fermenting a lager right now that's supposed to be 3.5 SRM according to the recipe. I followed the recipe as closely as I could and when I sparged, the wort looked pretty close to that 3.5 SRM mark, so I was happy about that. However, after I boiled, it became noticeably darker. I don't...

I've been using the "Clone Brews" recipe book as my guide. My last several batches of beer have been all-grain and successful for the most part. A commonly called for ingredient is "2.5°L German light crystal malt". I can't find this anywhere and I've heard other people complain that they...

It won't affect the outcome of the recipe to deviate in such a way? Would it be bad to reheat the partially mashed wort?

I read somewhere that if you mash at a higher temperature, you get sweeter, less fermentable wort and if you mash at a lower temperature, you get a dryer, thinner bodied beer. The higher temp was said to be 158° or higher and the lower temp was said to be at or below 150°.

Some of the recipes I have say to mash at 122° for 30 minutes and 150° for 60 minutes. My question is, how do I increase the temperature of the mash water after the first 30 minutes? The only thing I can imagine is running it off, putting it back into the kettle and bringing the...

Awesome help! This really clarifies it all. So many questions are answered, even those I didn't outright ask. Thank you all so much. I have my first lager sitting in my carboy right now. This one has not been transferred at all. I think I'll go ahead and let it stay there and not do a...

I'm all-grain. I don't transfer it every week. I transfer it to a secondary fermenter after about a week, when the fermentation slows. I've read that you can do a third fermentation phase as well, and I assumed this would be after another week. After a week or two, I bottle. Apparently...

I will take your advice. :) Not to say that I don't want to check the gravity, just that I want to keep that at a minimum.

@BKmyWAY Hmm. I'm using a cheap turkey fryer burner. This actually had me concerned about another thing. My beer usually comes out darker than it should. I've got a lager on deck now too that was very light in color when it came out of the mash tun, but after it boiled, it was quite a bit...

My recipe says, "allow to ferment 5-7 days or until fermentation slows and then bottle..." Well, after about a week, the fermentation had slowed, so I figured it was right. I have been experimenting with longer fermentation times. Right now I've got a barley wine on deck in it's secondary...

Every brew that I've ever done has always had this funny taste to it that I've never tasted in any other beer. I notice that this flavor is more prominent when I decide to try a bottle a little earlier than I should. So, I'm guessing that this strange flavor is actually the priming sugar. The...

Oooh. Hmm. So I just tossed a wine thief's worth of starter then. :( I would have saved it, but my wine thief doesn't go deep enough into my carboy to float my hydrometer, and I can't tilt it any more. I guess I'll cross my fingers and hope you're right about that.

I just pitched my first lager yeast. I prepped my starter and let it incubate for about 2 days. The total volume of the starter was about 1/2 gallon, so I boiled my brew down to 4.5 gallons instead of 5, so that when I pitched, my volume would equal close to exactly 5 gallons. I messed up...

I've got a 2042 Danish Lager yeast that I'm fixing to make a starter for. I'm a little confused about something though. On the wyeast website, this yeast is described as having a 46°-56° temperature tolerance, which makes sense since it's a lager. The thing I'm confused about is the...

Sounds very intriguing. I'm interested to hear how it comes out.

That was one drunk fly! I'm thinking maybe it fell into your wort while you were boiling and you didn't notice, in which case, the boil has it sanitized.

I recently tried my first barley wine. I did the double mash method. I had a problem with my second sparge that set me back a little bit but I recovered. The double mash was more time consuming and all but I didn't mind the challenge. It's better than upgrading all my stuff.