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It IS new. That was the very first batch I put in it, and I take care of my stuff. No scrubbies, etc. I just want to make sure there's nothing in there to contaminate the next batch.

If you take a grav reading, you get to look at the sample in the tube, and then taste it (don't pour it back into the fermenter). Other than that, I'm out of ideas. You can extrapolate from the sample pretty easily, though.

"Beer before liquor: never been sicker; Liquor, then beer: you're in the clear." As if. Anyway, to answer the OP: Either Fierce Melon or Tropical Mango Gatorade and 3 or 4 tacos from Taco Bell. A stack of pancakes and a tall glass of sweet tea also works.

I took another look at it the day before yesterday and it was obviously infected. It had what looked like mold growing on top, and it smelled bad. I was going to take a picture to post, but my camera chose just then to act up. Anyway, I ended up dumping it. What do I need to do to my bucket...

The OP is slightly confusing because when I sat down to write it, I thought it was more sour than anything. After another taste and smell, I decided it was more soy sauce, although it does have a slight, faint background sourness to it that I can't easily describe. Actually, the sourness is...

I've had a few London porters in my time, and sour isn't a flavor I remember. Relevant stats: Brewed on 9/21. OG 1.050, current G 1.022 (3rd day at current grav.) Pitched one vial of White Labs WLP005 on brew day. Pitched a second vial on 9/23 after consulting Mr. Malty and BeerSmith...

They need to be food grade plastic (plastic codes 2 and 4) and they really need to be about seven gallons. Five gallons is too small for a primary on a five gallon batch because it won't have enough room for fermentation. As for secondaries, it boils down to personal preference. Since I brew...

I read somewhere or another (can't remember where) that the SEC schools generally have the best tailgating and best travelling fans, followed closely by the southernmost Big 12 schools and southernmost ACC schools. They rated schools in New England and California at about the bottom of the...

Okay, I'm an Alabama fan, and we're the kings of tailgating. The beer is a no-brainer, so I'll leave that alone. There's a zillion ways you can go about this. You've got the southern barbecue option where you smoke pork butts (pork shoulder roast) ahead of time, then serve with sauce, slaw...

You triple pitched US-05? Don't add any more yeast -- you've got three times what you need! Just be patient. I have two buckets in my bathtub that took a bit over 48 hours to show signs, and now they're happily chugging away. Walk away from it, and aside from keeping an eye on temperatures...

Ha ha ha! Here I was thinking that I was too lazy to do the math and just filled my pot a gallon at a time, drew a line with a sharpie and wrote "1G", "3G", etc. :D My other tool that I just really am loving at the moment is my IC. In fact, I'm loving it so much I'm thinking about making a...

IL1kebeer, I use a 5 gallon paint stir stick that I marked. Stainless sounds better, though.

Fly sparge, mostly. Although honestly I don't really know why. I've read stats on both and it looks like for my batch sizes and so forth it really wouldn't make much difference.

You're probably right, although I thought I had it covered. We poured the hot water from the pot into the cooler, and then as my faithful assistant slowly poured in the grain, I stirred it in to make sure it all got wet and didn't make dough balls. I then stirred it some more to make sure...

I've got a 5-gallon Rubbermaid drink cooler, and it works okay. Actually, I have to work to keep temps from rising during the mash. However, it's not big enough, and since I like brewing bigger beers, I need a bigger MLT. I was just going to trip lightly down to "big orange" and buy a "big...

I was just about to ask a very similar question, so I'm commenting so I can easily find it again.

I'm curious about this too. I'm realizing just how powerful BeerSmith is, but figuring out how to make it do things is kind of tricky sometimes.

Would you kindly give me some idea about whether this recipe will work? I was reading about the style on the BeerSmith recipe site, and built it around that. Windyedge 70/- Scottish Ale 8lbs Pale Malt (2-Row) UK 12oz Crystal Malt (40L) 8oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine 4oz Roasted Barley 1oz Fuggles (60...

Just keep crawling this site. I've learned so much here, more than any of the books I've read.

Best brewday ever! Hit my estimated gravities on both batches, and if my math is correct, brewhouse efficiency on each was 82% and 86%, respectively. I'm pretty stoked.