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Unfortunately I don't have the exact recipe on hand. It was one I picked out of a recipe binder while I was in the brick and mortar Homebrewstuff.com store. I have since moved from Boise to Salt Lake City. If you give them a call, I'm sure they would be happy to tell you or send you the...

I would say it depends on how much you are willing to invest. I just brewed my first all grain batch last weekend. The new gear I invested in was done on the cheap, but it worked out nicely. I put together a 15 gallon aluminum kettle, to include drilling out the holes for and installing the...

The absolute hands down best brew I have done to date was a Russian Imperial Stout. I brewed it shortly after finding out my wife was pregnant with our second child and wanted to have a big beer aging during her pregnancy. So my Imperial aged for a little over 9 months before getting my first...

The recipe I had seemed to call for smaller volumes of water that made sense to me. That being said, I did end up adding more water to the mash tun than called for, the last gallon coming out of the batch sparge was VERY light. I'm not sure if there are denser pockets of sugars that settle...

Is it not strange that the pre-boil gravity reading was basically the same as the OG? I guess I just assumed it would change rather than stay basically the same. At any rate, that makes me feel better. I didn't calibrate it at 60 degrees, I was going to do that before throwing out the...

Well, my OG was the same reading as my pre-boil, so I'm chalking it up to a bad hydrometer. I'll have to invest in a refractometer. It looks like I may only have 4-4.5 gallons in my carboy, so i can expect a low volume batch. Maybe the American Wheat wasn't a good first all grain brew. I'm...

I used to battle boil overs doing full boils in my 8 gallon kettle. i just kept a spray bottle of water close by, or the hose on mist. If a potential boil over started, i'd spritz it with cool water to lower the surface temperature a tad. It worked like a charm, but required me to keep a...

So my first all grain brew is underway. After mashing, i took a pre-boil sample and stuck it in the freezer until its temp dropped to 70 degrees. When i took my gravity reading, it came in at 1.056. The estimated preboil gravity was supposed to be 1.044. I'm at a 90% efficiency, which cannot...

Yeah, I just drained the water out after seasoning. The last couple of inches of water was pretty cloudy white. I'm glad that crap isn't going into my beer. Brew day is tomorrow morning. I'm not expecting to get any off flavors, but I'll report how it turns out.

One mistake i made is that the thermometer probe is a tad too high. it sits like half an inch under 5 gallons. I think when I was filling it, i may have added an extra gallon mistakenly and placed it for 6 gallons. I think it will be ok though. Worse case scenario, 10 gallon batches...

Just made a video of me seasoning my new aluminum brew kettle. Not sure what value the video is, but if nothing else, a before and after look at a seasoned aluminum kettle could be educational right? http://youtu.be/WtbZBTyxe6M

I just moved from Idaho and it seems there are new craft microbreweries popping up like crazy over the last 2 years. Plus Boise is a very HB friendly town with several LHBS options within a close radius, my favorite being the bricks and mortar location of homebrewstuff.com.

For me, I have only ever done full boil. 5 gallon batches in an 8 gallon pot. I have to be vigilant to combat boil overs for the first 15 to 20 minutes, but once enough has evaporated, im on easy street. I'm not sure it really matters how much you boil and how much you "top off" with, outside...

I have yet to do my first AG batch, but in anticipation I put together a 10 gallon cooler mash tun. It only cost about $80. I thought it would be difficult, but the hardest part was getting all of the parts (the SS washers were a ***** to find but after 2 weeks of searching all of the Home...

When I posted a "how can I tell if its carbing" thread after my first bottling adventure, someone replied with some great advice. Crack one open and see for yourself. So at the end of week one, two, and three, I opened one up and drank. Not only did it give me the "proof" I needed to...

Get a 10+ gallon brew kettle for 5 gallon batches. I bought an 8 gallon to start me off and I have to REALLY babysit it to prevent boil overs during the first 20 minutes. 6.5 gallons in an 8 gallon kettle is flirting with danger.

My brewing partner did a Russian Imperial Stout seconaried with makers mark soaked oak cubes. We just cracked one open after about two months of bottle conditioning and it was very tasty. Another month or two to mellow out a tad more and it will be damn near perfect.

+1, but one item that I found worth its weight in gold is a solid brew pot. I got one from my local brew supply store that is 8 gallons stainless steel that was drilled to install a spigot and thermometer that came with it. It set me back quite a bit, but it has made life so much easier. The...

I did add a little bit more priming sugar. The first batch I added just under half a cup, while this batch I added 2/3 of a cup of the same corn sugar. Good to know on the temperature not affecting the amount.

I've read two things concerning what temperature to keep your bottles of carbonating beer at. One said to keep it at the same temperature as it fermented, and the other said on average, 70 degrees. I have been fermenting in a downstairs closet attached to our utility room that stays at an...