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One problem I had when I tried out my new home-made mash paddle was, by stirring my mash after the 90 minutes of mashing, I created a big problem. The grain bed itself acts as a filter to trap this sticky fine grained goo that clogged my false bottom (actually a mesh braid). How do you keep...

I'm going to get it back to about 70° and hopefully hold it there. No panic, no rush. It gets cold in that little room. :)

I've actually got a fridge dedicated to the task of keeping my brew cool. What actually happened is, I over-warmed it. It hasn't been warmer than 60 here in SW KS, so a fridge won't help me. I put my fermenter into a small room with a heater, but it's hard to keep the temp at around the 70°...

I'm using the Wyeast Irish Ale 1084, which has a temperature tolerance of 62° to 72°. The temp on my primary is reading about 74°, so I've taken measures to bring it down. It's climbed to 74° within the last few hours. What can happen to my brew, if anything, due to the higher temperature...

I started mine late and within a few hours, it's bubbling rapidly. That's proof that the yeast will be multiplying rapidly. I need to rapidly take my heiny to bed.

I wish I would have just gone to bed. I'd tell you what went wrong but it might be easier to say what didn't. I went to put the flavor hops ball into the brew and it popped open, spilling into the brew. I didn't know that the hops would float to the top. I later discovered that it would have...

oh yeah, the hops are kent golding

The recipe is pretty simple actually. It's 21lbs of Maris Otter and 10oz of 55L Crystal Malt for a 5 gallon yield. Oh, and about 5oz of this Lyle's Golden Syrup. The hops are 1.6oz of bitter, 1 oz of flavor, 1 oz of aroma, and another oz of dry hops for later. It's a Barley wine. You're...

We'll see how long I can stay conscious. I'm a little afraid of going ahead with the hops tonight since I'm probably more likely to make a mistake. I appreciate the advice, I think I know what I need to do. I will definitely start the starter sooner next time.

Okay, thanks a bunch! I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope it turns out. :)

Unfortunately, the best lessons learned in life, are those learned the hard way. I discovered after I mashed my barleywine and while I was waiting for it to boil off (currently still waiting), that it's more important to activate and multiply the yeast in a starter. A starter is something I've...

What's HSA? I was just concerned about the amount of time that the grain soaked and if the lowered temperature could affect it in any way. Conversion and efficiency isn't something I know much about. I guess my skill level hasn't reached that point yet, but this conversation has an eyebrow...

Hmm, the recipe doesn't call for any particularly different aging. Any good references you could point me to so I can learn? :) (btw, the ale only uses one phase of yeast - no wine yeast).

As I mentioned in my "Scum (in the) bucket" thread, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and stir my mash before I started sparging. Turned out to be a bad idea because my false bottom clogged up and I was forced to perform some desperate measures. I filtered all the grain out of...

I'm making a barley wine that's simply 21lbs of Maris Otter and a little bit of 55L Crystal. I made a mistake when I used my new mash paddle (that I made from scratch). I decided to stir the mash right before it was ready to be sparged. This caused a whole bunch of crud to get through...

I wondered about all the pre-boil sanitization I did and if it was even necessary. I do understand that the boil sanitizes, I guess I was playing it cautious from the start and kept going with what I started with. Thanks a lot guys, I'm sure I'll be saving a lot of time on my next brew.

What do you use to force the water through the tubing in order to "flush" it? I have this elaborate gravity system set up. lol - 3 tiers of buckets channeling water. :|

I'm talking about the tubing used for siphoning from the HLT to the mash tun and out to the boil pot, also the tubing used for bottling and transferring from the primary to the secondary fermenter. This includes the racking cane, etc. Stuff with openings smaller than my finger can reach in to...

The thing I dread the most about brewing is the sanitization process. I spend about 4 hours running detergent, rinse, sanitizer solution, and then a final rinse through my 5-gallon HLT, 5-gallon mash tun, brew pot, and 7-gallon carboy, so that I can clean and sanitize all the tubing. If...

Did you use clean, filtered water? Did you filter it yourself or buy it from a water retailer like Deep Rock or whatever? If you haven't changed the filter in your water filtration system or if you're using tap water, you could be tasting sediment from your commercial water supply. Even if...