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I'm planning my next two fermentations. The first will be a rye ale targeted at 1.052 OG and the second will be a stout targeting 1.116 OG both using the same yeast. The first beer I calculated wants around 186 billions cells pitched, the second somewhere in the 400+ billion cells. I made a...

Everyone else has already said it but I wanted to chime in. The Midwest guys have never failed to help me out in a pinch. I live in Chicago, and found out the hard way that normal FedEx shipping actually arrives faster than the 2-day express. While not even remotely the fault of Midwest...

Which brand/strain do you use?

Sorry bottled 9-15-11 Yes we've brewed a few times since then with no problems. In fact a pumpkin ale was brewed and bottled day and date with the scotch and it was perfect. I really can't thank all of you enough for the advise and help.

They were crown caps on 22oz non-screw top bottles. They were bottled 10-15-11 or so and as of dec 15 had zero carb, no pop or hiss or any other indication of co2 buildup. They aren't just under carbonated they're zero carbonated. Thanks all for the help. I've marked this one down as a failure...

I do almost all my non-lhbs ordering through Midwest. They're always helpful on the phone and through the web contact form. Their shipping seems expensive for small items but since they charge what FedEx charges you get a much better deal the larger your order. In my example I got charged $12...

Thanks again. I knew it'd be a little slower with my low temps. I just wasn't ready for how slow apparently. It's slowly popping away in the brew closet so I'll check on it in another month :)

I appreciate the quick and helpful response! So you believe that a mead slowing down now at 1.040 has potential to get in the 1.015 range I'm targeting? I'm ok with waiting but would hate to wait only to find it cloyingly sweet. What about a gentle degas and another nutrient addition?

More than a month ago I started an orange blossom honey mead. I mixed approximately 13.5# honey and topped up to a little over the 5 gallon mark. I regret that I took the RDWAHAHB too far and forgot to take a SG reading. I pitched 1 vial white labs sweet mead before realizing how much of an...

OK, yeast addition failed. We rehydrated a dry pack of US05 and used a sanitized "flavor injector" w/o the syringe to add it to the bottles. We popped the cap, squirted in some slurry, and quickly recapped. After 4 weeks of sitting on the new yeast none of the bottles have carbed up. We're just...

I ended up not adding any of the extra bits since the beer came out great on its own. The brew has a slight purple hue, little head retention, but excellent blackberry nose and up front flavor. Sitting in my keg for about a month at 34F under about 15 psi has really dropped the sorghum twang and...

Bottles failed to carb after 2 months conditioning. Since they're still good flat we are going to titrate some fresh yeast slurry into a handful of bottles as an experiment and recap them. Thanks all for your help

Right on thanks. I wasn't sure how important oxidation was to straight meads. I appreciate your quick reply.

I'm working with some assumptions that may not be correct, so please correct me if I'm wrong. Does bulk aging a mead in a corny keg and purging headspace with CO2 prevent or slow the good bits of mead aging? Racking off the lees to glass each time isn't a problem but putting it in a keg for...

At 36 degrees I'd carb it for a week at 7-10 psi, though leaving it on gas for 2-3 weeks will let the carb "bite" age out. I'm sure someone here will post a chart, the psi, temp, and time to carb is a sliding scale. Personally I'd let it sit on gas for a week to get it drinkable, and...

Also also, to the abv thing, I mis-typed, my sg was 1.114, not 1.140

(And just to explain myself a bit) Normally, if the beers had been for me, I'd just leave them in the closet and give them as much time as needed to get better, and if after 6 months they still didn't do what I'd wanted they'd become chili starters or the base for a marinade. However, they...

Thank you all for the great advice. I think for now we will follow the RDWHAHB rule. Revvy, you are of course right. I've never bottle conditioned such a large beer and didn't think through the conditions. We will ask the groom to hang onto his beers a few months before cracking into them. His...

A fellow homebrewer and I made a very strong scotch ale, SG 1.140 and finished at 1.026. Now, We'd targeted a 6 gallon batch but due to a very vigorous 90m boil only 5 gallons made it into the fermentor after which beer smith calculated the abv to be around 11.8%. Using the Wyeast 1728 strain...

They don't seal on their own but there is a very large flap. I put an oz of hops in each bag and folded it several times and stapled it closed, then spritzer some no-rinse sanitized onto it. I don't expect to leave the bag in long enough for it to rust, and if it does (or if it can) it is such a...