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We use a 5000ml flask and boil my starter wort directly in the flask. We put a piece of tin foil on top and let the steam roll up through the foil. 10 minutes boiling in the flask, cool to 65, then spray the outside of my yeast container with star San and pitch the yeast. On the stir plate it...

Sounds about right for someone new to the hobby. You’ll be fine; just learn for your next batch. I would definitely recommend visiting your local shop again and picking up a kettle big enough to do a full wort boil and a wort chiller. With those two upgrades it will make your brew day much more...

“Tart” is subjective. How tart are we talking? Usually tart or sour is a sign of a Brett or lacto infection, but it’s usually incredibly sour. The purée is best added post fermentation as others have stated, but I usually bring my purée up to about 180 for 10 min to pasteurize it as well or...

You’re right, I often forget about the BIAB guys. My BIAB customers ask me to mill the grain to a .25 vs the .38 my mill is normally set at. As for decotion mash, that’s not a thing anymore. There is no real reason to do one unless you are in it for the experience or a traditional outdated...

Try brewing it again if it’s a recipe you like and don’t change anything. If you hit the same numbers you’ll know where to dial in your system and what efficiency you’re getting.

Belgian and some German breweries have a house strain which creates the unique flavors and characteristics that style is known for. Belgian beers typically have a lot of what we’d consider off flavors like sour, medicinal, funk but when blended and aged they work really well. The heffe is known...

I’d have to judge them on a panel with a flight of like beers in order to accurately answer that question.

Absolutely, I could, but because I have myself and 3 brewers on staff the math is much easier and consistent to stay at 18 gallons. We come up with more round numbers at a total of 18. When I entered my equipment and recipes into beer smith I saved the profile for everyone at 18 gallons, so we...

Yeah in normal beers we typically expect a gallon to be left behind in the fermenter. Also we try to leave a gallon behind in the kettle to keep the chill haze and astringent causing proteins to be omitted from the beer. If 3.5 gallons is the most you can brew you might consider dropping to...

1.016 is very acceptable attenuation for an OG of 1.060. 1.060 is pretty dang big for a wit by the way, I’d have to check but off the top of my head I think style guidelines is 1.040-1.050. It’s supposed to be a light refreshing session style wheat beer with low hop character and the yeast...

So I’d start taking some notes and figure out what works best for you. It’s best if you can keep a bottle or two from each batch to do a blind taste. Brew the same recipe using your grain bag method, hop bags, then finally loose in the fermenter and see if you see any difference in the beer. As...

Unfortunately this is a problem we face as well. We brew 15 gallon batches which means brewing 18 gallons. 16 runs into the fermenter and 15.5 into the brite tank. We end up dumping .5 gallons each week when kegging and end up calling it an angel share.....here’s one for the homies. Just be...

You might be confusing laggering with cold crashing. While they are similar in principle, there are big differences between the two. Cold crashing should be done to help clarify the finished product. Usually we will add polyclar or gelatin to the beer once it’s been transferred to another...

Personally we moved to kegging in about 6 months of brewing. We went from 5-10 gallon batches 15 years ago, and got tired of bottling all that. Plus pouring your own beer from your own kegerator is just sweet. We went to kegging before moving to all grain. Then in about 2006 we made the jump...

As a new brewer water should be the last thing you are concerned with. Using drinking water is a perfect way to go. You are avoiding chlorine/chloramines, and the malt extract will have all the nutrients and minerals needed for a good healthy ferment. Even when going all grain, I suggest my...

Typically we practice and advise our customers to use a hop basket or hop bag when dry hopping. Honestly, most of the time we just introduce the hops directly to the fermenter for maximum surface area and simply rack the beer off the trub in a couple days. I’m sort of confused here; why not just...

Very sound advice from someone who obviously has done spurs successfully. As for us dropping the PH to 3.5, yeah I do that because wyeast microbiologists recommend that strain be inoculated from a started at 3.5 and held for 48hrs at 98* degrees. I also prefer phosphoric acid to lactic because...

Please do not put a spoon or any other foreign object into your fermenter while you are in fermentation. I typically advocate not opening the fermenter at all after pitching the yeast and keeping it under pressure, but this can be difficult while dry hoping. Dry hoping for 6 days is quite a...

Yep, what he [emoji1312] said, but there are few dos and don’ts with specialty grains. Do: mill the grains, but don’t pulverize them into flour Do: steep at around 152 for 30 min Do: use a grain bag Don’t: squeeze the grain bag when removing the grains. This can result in the release of...

I would up the boil to at least 10 min to kill bacteria. As I have seen with the grain father, it only gets to 212* and no hotter, so maintaining a true rolling boil is a difficult task. Also switch from lactic to phosphoric acid to drop the PH. Lactic acid will taste like bile at over 200ppm...