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I am terrible at DIY stuff, which is why I bought a chiller instead of trying to make one myself. Sadly, even buying one apparently requires more DIY competence than I actually have. I brewed for the first time with a chiller three weeks ago, and it took me an hour to figure out that I...

Making a black IPA (or whatever we call them these days), shooting for an OG of 1.056. Took the preboil gravity (volume of about 6.4 gallons), chilled the sample in the fridge during the boil, got a reading of 1.043. That was a lot lower than I'd like--figured with a gallon of boiloff, it'd give...

I've been brewing for about two years, and this is the first time this has ever happened. My beer has been fermenting in the closet, like usual. The fermentation seemed to be relatively normal, although I wasn't checking in every day. I had a busy couple of weeks, so it's been about a month...

I brew BIAB, and I've finally come up with a recipe good enough that my roommate asked me to brew it again despite the fact that our last 50 bottles of the stuff just came ready three weeks ago. Granted, they're almost gone now. So I agreed with him, and I'm rebrewing something that came out...

So when I take a hydrometer reading, I'm usually not that confident in my reading being super precise, so I just leave the hydrometer test tube out for a little while, then come back to check again to make sure I had the right reading. (I can be a little OCD about things like that, and as soon...

I'm six batches deep in all-grain brewing now (although the sixth batch has been a failure so far--it never carbonated at all), and one of the trickiest things has been getting carbonation right. I'm making five gallon batches, and I started out adding the 5 oz packs of dextrose, and have...

What does this look like to expert eyes? Infection or normal? Just curious, as I hadn't seen anything that looked like this before. Sorry the picture isn't any better. This is a picture of the dregs of a carboy about 12 hours after bottling, so if it is an infection, I'm not...

Making a steam beer, my first with Wyeast 2124. So I'm not sure if what I'm seeing is normal for lager yeast or whether it's something I should be concerned about. But here's what I have so far. *Bought smack pack. Smacked it. Did not inflate. Pitched into starter anyways. *Made 1 L...

I posted this Friday in the Beginner Forum because I thought it was a beginner question, but it got no responses over the weekend, so I thought maybe I'd put it in the wrong place. I do have a couple questions about the attempted recipe as a whole, but the main question relates to the limit of...

I've always liked Sam Adams Mighty Oak Ale, and I thought maybe if I made some, I could have some in the fall instead of waiting for spring. Sadly, I haven't seen any clone attempts on the Internets, and I've never come up with a clone recipe myself. I thought I'd give it a shot based on these...

I've been debating trying to come up with a clone recipe for Sam Adams' Mighty Oak Ale, so I've been poking around the stats on their website. And, unless I'm making some newbish mistake, their SRM reports don't make any sense at all. They claim that Mighty Oak is brewed with a mix of pale...

I am the opposite of a hophead. But I'm always up for trying new things, and I keep hearing that Bell's Two-Hearted is the gateway IPA, so I gave it a try when I found it on tap at Mellow Mushroom. At first sip, my thought was ALL THE HOPS. But the finish was remarkably tasty. I certainly...

Today was bottling day on my first AG batch, and I'm starting to think that bottling takes longer than the actual brew day. Or rather, starting the siphon takes longer than the actual brew day. (Yes, I know that there's a thing called an auto-siphon, and I don't have one yet. This is a venting...

Just pitched yeast for my first AG, for which I used DeathBrewer's BIAB method and Revvy's Kentucky Common recipe. I had no idea what efficiency to expect, so I scaled the recipe for 68% efficiency (because all the numbers came out even when I used 68%). If I hit my numbers correctly, the OG...

Got an infection in my blowoff bucket. Can anybody tell me what this is and whether it's worth bottling or whether it'll destroy the beer? Also, I added fruit. The guy at the LHBS told me to soak it in vodka before adding. I'm suddenly skeptical about whether this was sufficient sanitation...

Second brew day today, was excited about fixing some of the known issues with my first one. Of course, as y'all well know, new ones always crop up. Instead of boiling the wort and then boiling more water to top off, I did it the other way around. Three gallons boiled around 2 PM, then tossed...

So I just went by the LHBS to pick up ingredients for my 2nd ever batch. My Dad is a big fan of Allagash White, and his birthday is in eight weeks, so I thought I'd make him something using a modified Allagash recipe. Clone recipe called for: 6.6 lbs LME 40% wheat/60% barley .75 oz Saaz...

Bottled my first batch 20 days ago and am preparing to sample some of the first batch and to fix some oversights for next week's second batch. Brewed batch one before having discovered HBT, and I've already found loads of things that could be improved. But there's one thing I haven't gotten...

I just bottled my True Brew Porter (extract kit) with a gravity of 1.021 (also my first attempt at brewing). It was supposed to settle out at 1.012-1.014 after seven days. I waited seventeen days before bottling. The fermentation was vigorous. Krausen on the ceiling (and walls, and floor. . . )...

Greetings (is that the most used noun in this subforum?)! Working on my first batch right now, hoping I didn't screw anything up (from browsing, I'm seeing the answer is I didn't). Been browsing here for a couple weeks, finally decided to sign up. Awesome site.