Search results

"... the degree of fermentation—i.e., whether a given beer has been singly, doubly, or triply fermented—is crucial" to stable foam. So Belgian tripel is triply (is that a word?) fermented. Who knew? https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/08/physics-of-why-belgian-beer-foam-is-so-stable/

Making another cucumber Pilsner today (cukes go in the fermenter at high krausen). I'm trying a new malt: Techcomalt floor-malted pilsner malt, which I stumbled onto at my LHBS. I also added ~5oz. leftover Weyermann melanoidin to perhaps strengthen the head. In an excess of caution, I did a...

Yesterday at about 11AM I made a 2-quart starter with a pouch of Imperial Triple Double, mfg. date: January 14, 2025. I aerated (shook) the still-warm wort in its sanitized gallon jug, added the yeast slurry and swirled. Then I put it in my fermentation chamber at 65°F, and swirled it...

I'm interested in making a Belgian-style dubbel, so I bought a few to help inform the effort. Didn't go great. The first, Corsedonk Pater (7.5%) was rather boring. The second, Westmalle (7.0%) had only a bit more interest. Both were near their "best by" dates, and the retailer stores them...

Happy New Year one and all!

A talented presenter offers solid information about the core of brewing: malt! It ends with an ad for squarespace, but that's only the last minute or so. Really good stuff.

I've had fine success in the past, racking a DIPA onto the yeast cake left after I moved an IPA to its serving keg. (Dry hopped in the serving keg.) I was going to do that again, but there's a twist. This time around, I added 4 oz. of pellet hops to the IPA in the fermenter (Flex+ bucket), and...

I'm fortunate to have two splendid local homebrew supply stores within easy reach. I get almost all my ingredients there. But things are changing. I needed some hops, and had price and availability shocks. Even with shipping Yakima Valley Hops offered what I sought for about half the price...

Much has been made elsewhere on HBT about closing of LHBS retail storefronts, and the possible decline of the homebrewing hobby. Today I read that craft brewing and beer drinking are also declining. From a letter to the editor of oregonlive.com, aka The Oregonian: The Northwest is unique in...

My Duvel-ish clone has a chill haze. Did I wrongly skip doing a protein rest? Base: Dingeman's Belgian Pilsner. 4 oz. Belgian aromatic, 2oz. Weyermann Cara Helles. Mashed at 151°F. What am I missing?

I'm imagining a 1.5" tri-clamp fitting with liquid ball lock outside and a skinny tube inside for a FLOTit dip tube. It would go on a lid port of my Flex+ fermenter. A hop dropper would go on another port. @Bobby_M doesn't seem to have such an item in his impressive selection. Anyone know...

I just got a Grothen 500 ml/min peristaltic pump ($32.09, free shipping, ebay) for controlled fly-sparging with a Blichmann auto-sparge (See this prior thread about why this is desirable). The pump will move hot wort from my mashtun to my brew kettle. Now I need to adapt its 1/4"...

Have you ever noticed that different people report silent things about the same food or beverage, such as your beer? Maybe this tongue research explains that.

I've brewed this recipe many times: a DIPA that I call Scottish Imperial Ale because I use Scottish ale yeast, usually Imperial Tartan. About 1.090 OG. The next batch is boiling now. The previous one came out too sweet. Why? Conceivably, it was due to using White Labs Edinburgh because the...

I've been brewing beer a good long while. Making good beer isn't real hard. Almost all the beers I make are good. Great beer is another story. Feedback is one thing, whether from polite friends who just say the beer is great, or from those with more detailed responses. But then there's my...

I just disassembled my pump-related fittings for a deep cleaning - much needed given the gunk I found! The most annoying part of the process was removing the old Teflon™ tape from the male threaded parts, which took up more than half my disassembly and cleaning time. (The few bits of tape left...

Both the gauge that came with my Spike manifold bundle and the cheap digital gauge I bought on eBay fail to show useful information for low pressures. They seem to think that anything much below 10PSI is really zero. Is there anything to do about this issue? Anyone have a better gauge to...

I moved a 5 gal. corny of stout into the ~36°F kegerator from a ~65°F closet. In your experience, about how many hours (or days) should it take to equilibrate?

I decided to try a variation in my simple, tried-and-true IPA. I substituted Imperial Juice A38 for my usual Imperial Flagship A07. But then I also subbed some Motueka into the Mosaic dry hop charge. (My process is pretty consistent. And yes, I know that the best experiment would be to...

The idea for this beer came from a thread about very complex malt bills. @Holden Caulfield wrote: "Anything more than 5 grains, not including acidulated malt, is making a muddy mess - we're not making curry or mole." @GoodTruble responded: "Molé porter! Genius!" I thought: why not? For a...