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I totally agree. Unfortunately, my wife doesn't...

Glad it all worked out. I am brewing with two new scobies in 20 liter fermenting vessels and it is taking forever. The first cycle or two is supposed to be slow as the microflora that produce your scoby acclimatize to their new environment. You'll probably see faster fermentation cycles going...

At 8.5 days it should be close to ready or even ready, depending on how you like the taste. The pellicles, as most people call the scoby, are fairly irrelevant. It seems their function is to seal over the surface to prevent competing bacteria and yeast from entering into the fray. They allow the...

Not to muddy the waters or the beer, for that matter, I have found 40 psi for 24 hours, purge and set at serving pressure to work for all my IPAs and even stouts. Now I have a Raging Red Irish Ale kegged and despite using that exact regimen it pours perfectly with a nice head but the beer itself...

I don't see mold here but your scoby looks more like a tortilla than a scoby from the top down shot. Mold will only appear on the surface of the scoby and is usually in circles and HAIRY. It also grows fast. It looks to me you are ok. Wait a day to see if there are any changes that look like...

Some good advice here.

Thanks for the idea and info. I will give this a whirl. Cheers.

This sounds like a great idea. Have you noticed any difference using this method compared to traditional dry-hopping? I'm wondering if some of the aromas might be lost in the hot water. Also, did you use a dedicated French Press for this to avoid any coffee flavors sneaking their way in...

You run the risk of extracting bitterness from boiling citrus peel. I have had good success using grapefruit peel by grating it using a cheese grater and letting it steep in a cup or two of vodka for 24-48 hours. That extracts the oils and sterilizes everything at the same time. Then dump it in...

This is what I do and it works great. I also just go buy two grapefruits and after washing them without soap in hot water use a cheese grater and get my own natural zest. It makes a huge floral impact on an IPA and I am actually just now off to my LHBS to get ingredients for my next one.

You could also try dry hopping by either dumping some aromatic hop pellets straight into the keg or putting them in a tea infuser/ball that has been sterilized and hanging it in the middle of the keg using unflavored tooth floss. You will obviously get more hop aroma this way but it won't make...

I use the same process as YeastMode but I also cold crash the primary before transferring to the keg. I find this helps settle things and I get clearer beer into the keg as a result. Then the keg will sit for another two weeks or so (my secondary fermentation) before I stick it in the Kegerator...

I use beerlabelizer.com and print my own. You can take any picture you want and put it on one of their stock labels, print at home and you're done. Gimp and Inkscape look like great free programs but I don't have the full 24 hours it would take playing around with these things to figure them...

You are amazing. You brewed all that beer, built an outdoor bar, etc., while planning for your wedding? Hats off to you!

I have a GF and brew indoors as we have no garage and it rains a lot here in New Zealand. (Yes, I have the 240 V AC version and it boils like mad). I think most people who have experienced clogging on the Grainfather may be forgetting this crucial step: you MUST turn the valve down on the...

My friends love all my beer because it is free. Probably not the most discerning crowd...

Stevia is not a fermentable sugar so your scoby won't process it. Also, it is mostly made in huge factories in China so I would stay away from it, personally.

Yeah, that voodoo about not using stainless steel is just so much bovine fecal material.

FWIW, I've been monkeying around with this and have found cold crashing in kegerator with psi set at 40 for 24 hours does it. Then I purge the keg (Corny) and set the gas at 10 psi. She is then ready to drink. Carbonation job done in 24 hours. I agree the beer improves over the next few days...

It's great fun and so much easier than brewing beer. Rule #1 though is: Don't disturb the scoby in any way for the first 7 days. This means don't move anything around as it has to settle in a make a baby scoby which will cover the surface and grow until it touches the sides. You can use...