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Originally, porter was a mix of the beers on tap. The style we call porter was probably an approximation of that flavor. However, stout and ipa sounds might specific (and not quite right).

Yeah, I realized that after posting. The same concerns hold, though. As long as you hit a high enough mash-out temp, you shouldn't have to worry about the mash continuing overnight, and if ambient chilling doesn't lead to infection, neither should letting the wort sit overnight. I'm not sure...

A few things must have gone wrong. The low mash temp would only increase the fermentability (and thus yield), so that's not a problem. You probably overextracted from one part of the mash and missed sugar from the rest of the mash, if you were that careful not to mess up the grain bed. Also, as...

I've brewed dozens of batches with ambient cooling (i.e. letting it sit covered overnight). Never had an infection or an off flavor (though I'll be honest, I don't know what they taste like fast chilled because I've never had the chance to try it; however I've never had the commonly reported off...

Toilet dump, it'll taste awful. You could harvest some yeast but unless you're using a very expensive yeast it's not worth the trouble (in my oh so humble opinion). The Brits use it to make Marmite, but that's probably not helpful to you.

When I use Windsor, it usually stops bubbling after three days, tops, after which I give it two weeks to settle. I realize it continues fermenting slowly, but as a beginning brewer I thought I had done something horribly wrong. Some strains of yeast are just precocious.

I usually check one after a week, and they're almost always fully carbed, but they won't taste the best then. For a beer like that i'd wait at least two weeks, if not a month, before bothering to drink any. There's more to bottle conditioning than mere carbonation.

I'm talking on the scale of decades/centuries for properly handled bottles, but no bottle is flawless. The eventual degradation of the plastic on a crown cap, for example, provides an avenue for infection. The point is purely academic, but all beer will eventually fall to the bugs.

I never lose more than a bottle or two of my own beer (which, being extremely kind here, I made and I can do whatever the hell I want with). I've had beers which I thought peaked that actually got better with time. If it's a beer I've never made before, whose recipe came out of my own head, how...

That's my whole point. Every beer has a lifespan, whether it's six months or twenty years, and every beer has a peek moment when it tastes the best. And whether it's a miniscule contamination at bottling or the degradation of the alpha acids, all beer eventually will taste like crap. You can buy...

Yes. But take a low ABV, low hop beer and try aging it in my slightly above room temperature laundry room for a year, and see how it tastes. We're talking apples and oranges, here.

It's a slight alteration in the flavor; I'm not saying that it turns into lambic. I don't know whether it's alpha acid breakdown or bacteria, but in either case my low-abv (3-4%) beers lose their flavor and have an ever so slight tang after a year or so. And this is with literally all of them...

Forgot to mention that alpha acid breakdown can taste sour, even if there's not one bacterium present.

Pretty much any beer will eventually go sour. Even the best sanitation is not sterilization, but the alcohol and hops keep whatever tiny amount of bacteria survives reproducing very slowly. Improper storage (say, in a hot room or car) greatly speeds up the process. The only thing I've ever had...

That makes sense, then. I've heard people rave about them and I've always been confused. I guess I'll give them another try, then.

May I ask, though, why you would pick a light beer with no known mash schedule for your first all-grain batch? Light beers are extremely touchy and difficult to make good, even for experienced all-grain brewers. Might I suggest a maltier amber ale, a stout, or an american wheat, all of which...

Single infusion mash, fly sparge if you're equipped for it. No need to complicate things. If you're trying to make a really light beer, 140 f for an hour or two will completely destroy any complex sugars, and you'll get a very light ale.

I received the Brooklyn BrewShop's Beer Making Book for Christmas this year. It's definitely aimed at beginning brewers (all science is scrubbed from the process, but I have other books for that), and the recipes stretch creativity towards the gimmicky end, but there's a lot of interesting...

They should be safe in the can, but even the act of opening the can can introduce bacteria, so you should probably boil your puree before adding it. As for the syrup, it will have picked up a lot of the apricot flavor, so it couldn't hurt to throw that in.

I wouldn't add any more hops. The dark specialty malts don't add much in the way of sugar so you shouldn't have to worry about decreasing the bitterness by adding them.