Search results

The yeast was certainly viable when it swelled the pack, so unless the wort was a heckuva lot hotter than 80˚ (was it?) you're fine. A layer of sediment on the bottom of your starter jar or a bit of scum around the waterline indicates that it's done its thing. Remember, making a starter is...

A blonde ale is typically more like a Kölsch than an APA. It is often lighter in colour, often uses Euro hops, has less bitterness, and by definition has less hop flavour than an APA. BJCP Style Guidelines are wonderful. I don't have the link on tap, but google will turn it up for you.

A mashout decoction works the same way as a primary one, only accuracy is less critical. Mash in at 155, hold for an hour, pull out a thick third of your mash, raise to a boil for 15m, add back in to raise temperature of mash to ~170 for sparging. Same melanoidins as the other single decoction...

geez, man. To have an income. What counted as a luxury purchase for me is a Bodum, and even that I'm paying for with a week of getting all my protein from dhal. Oh, to eat meat again. (The 100lb of grain doesn't count - that was an investment it would be irresponsible not to make.)

To get a little bit back on topic: Ancient beers being a bit beyond my scope, I'll describe some of the techniques used in early modern (pre-pasteur) European and British breweries. 1) Quick consumption - most beer made was household ale brewed and consumed well inside a week as a source of...

It could be an opportunity to split batches, too. Get a couple of 2.5G carboys, and ferment them with different yeasts, or dry hop one with (for example) Cascade and the other with EKG or Chinook or Saaz or whatever.

Amber malt is more akin to Vienna or Munich. It is a more highly kilned two-row, with its own (weak) enzymes. It would historically have been used as a base malt for some British ales (just like brown malt was the base malt for porter). It would lend a toasty or nutty flavour. I suggest biscuit...

I assume you're planning to make a starter, in which case it'll be totally fine - the starter gives both of the advantages a smackpack does (proof of vitality + increased cell counts). As much as I love smackpacks, starters sort of render them redundant. (Oh yeah, I had the same happen to me...

Make it as planned. It'll be like a baltic porter but a bit lighter. Like one of those foreign export lager-stouts. I like it. Tell me how it is. Mind you, all those spice ideas are cool, but I want to see how it's like as you plan it.

Yeah. There's no such thing as the perfect beer - there are only perfect beers. Have I made one of them? No. If I ever do, and I give you a bottle, will you think it's perfect? Maybe. Probably not. I had a perfect beer once. It was an Orval. None of the ones I'd had before or have had since...

Flaked oats need to be mashed - they don't have their own enzymes, they rely on the excess enzymes from your base malt. In other words, they're not possible in an extract-and-steeping-grain-only beer. You'd have to go partial mash at least for the oatmeal.

Heavy late-hopping or dry-hopping can give you a bit of haze from hop oils/resins. It's the haze of delicious. Treasure it - filter-ers don't get that. (If it's there when you pour and gone by the end of the pint, it's chill-haze proteins. Extended cold aging will clear that, if you really...

Exactly. Try to get 60% of your IBUs from additions in the last 15min of brewing, you'll get big flavour. Hallertau are delicious; try the other noble hops as well (hallertau, saaz, tettnang, strisselspalt). It might not be cheap with hop prices being what they are, but it should be worth it.

The windows jab, I'm going to assume, wasn't aimed at the blessed few with the tech-savvy to make vista sing like a nightingale. It was aimed at the masses who use it (and IE and Word) because it's what done came on their Dell. Windows is generally BMC, but in the right hands it might maybe be a...

Re: the coriander. The vegetal character you talk about is the result of using Mexican coriander (the more common variety) instead of Indian. Your Indian grocer will have the right variety. Mexican coriander is smaller and spherical; Indian coriander is slightly larger and shaped like a rugby...

Lighter than glass. Nonstandard mouth meant I had to buy new stoppers. It's still just a carboy. Price Payed: $20.00 Recommended? Yes

Lighter than glass. Nonstandard mouth meant I had to buy new stoppers. It's still just a carboy. Price Payed: $20.00 Recommended? Yes

You're welcome. By the way to eliminate the infection: throw out and replace all plastic/rubber equipment. Sanitize glass and metal equipment with a bleach solution. There's a chance it's resident in your house, so on further batches never ever leave the cooled wort in the open air after the...

I don't know, from her descriptions of the sourness, it sounds more like lactic sourness than acetic. Acetic sourness is a very hard sourness, definitely salad-dressing-y, whereas lactic is more super-tart. Also, to completely turn to vinegar, you'd need a lot of oxygenation (eg completely open...

In a discussion of birds who brain themselves on windows: