Search results

I like the Zywiec a lot, but I find it to be like a slightly roasty dopplebock. Most other examples I have had tend to be roastier, but this kit sounds like it is worth making. My dark beers usually benefit the most from some patience in the secondary or in the bottle and the year old baltic...

If I have plenty of healthy yeast, I add it to the boil. If I am pitching on the low end, I add it as a boiled and cooled syrup when it is convenient after a few days. Also try mash temps below 150 and raising the temp toward the end of fermentation to get a nice digestible beer.

Update? Do you have a taste preference?

absolutely no worries there

Use all malt except only 4 oz of Roast Barley, steal your kids oatmeal for more gravity points, and hop it like an American Brown ale.

Get a tub, put your carboy in it, put some water in it with a few frozen water bottles, rotate in new frozen bottles once a day OR get a tub and cold crash the beer in ice cold water for a day or two. It will be cleaner tasting IMO, since Wyeast 1010 is low flocc'ing and Kolsch is not a beer...

If you can't afford the dry-hops, I would cut out something in the 20-10min range and make sure that you dry-hop it with at least 1.5 oz.

I've had good success with citrus peel in the secondary. I use a very sharp vegetable peeler and try to go really shallow. Easier to keep out of the final beer and so much faster than microplane.

It is probably some combination of your hops, but I have made very crisp pilsners with hallertau. Don't like spalt as much and I like saaz, but not in German pilsners, as I find it to be a milder hop than hallertau. My other thought is, what is your water like? When I have had success with...

Swirling the carboy a little helps the krausen fall back into the beer. 1007 ferments can keep a head on it for a long time otherwise.

I have also had mixed luck with reusing 3068. One or two sucessful repitch and then either yeasty death taste or contamination.

Dry hop with the 0.5 oz EKG

I would only do a gallon of the beer with blueberries to lower the risk (not worried about contaminating, just weird tasting beer) and use two pounds of blueberries. You are probably not looking at in your face, taste like blueberry beer, but just some complexity and fruity notes to a beer that...

Spruce trees are very common landscape plants. I would be shocked if there weren't some within walking distance of you in Chicago. I have actually had better luck picking spruce tips later in summer, not the new growth as is suggested --which I didn't get any flavor from. I have used black...

Check out OldSock's most recent post at http://www.themadfermentationist.com/ for some tasting notes of a peach beer. He did 2.5lbs/gallon.

I would lager it for a week or two after it is done fermenting before bottling to really let the maltiness shine and the flavors to come together. I know my belgo-blondes really benefit from at least a cold crash. They become delicious much faster that way.

I've used the peel of two grapefruit in a wit. It took an extra week or two for the flavors to meld and a bit of bitterness to mellow (~4 weeks in bottle, 6 weeks after brew) but after that it was great for several months before the grapefruit flavor faded. However, it made the wit taste like...

Mash in a little thicker than you usually do (less water per pound), so you can add boiling water to raise from 104 to 162 with boiling water. To heat the 'thick' mash, scoop some out with a strainer or small pot and heat it to 144 on the kitchen stove. Use a mash calculator to figure out...

you could try using a boat-load of low AA hops for bittering or later if you want a hoppy RIS

I just made a string of beers with S-04 all fermented at around 63-65 air temp and they taste very clean to me. I was expecting a little more yeast profile actually. I cold-crashed to help drop dry-hops and when I pour a beer the yeast sediment in the bottles doesn't really pour out like other...