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I have been regularly brewing this past winter and spring. I boiled my 7th 5 gallon batch last week. The last 5 batches have been partial-mash brews (with a huge increase in quality). To give a bit of background, I brew in my kitchen, in a 5 gallon kettle, on a modestly powered stove. I'm not...

According to mrmalty.com, 1.5 packets of dry yeast would be better for my 5 gallon brews than a single packet. I'll try that with my next batch, and aerate. But I can't cold crash the beer. Neither my 7 gallon fermenter bucket, nor my carboy will fit in my fridge. It might take me longer to...

But is that still true after you open up the bucket to take a sample? If I ferment in a bucket for two weeks, and then sample the beer to measure the gravity, the bucket will contain oxygen. And I will probably be taking more frequent samples after that. So, it seems to me the beer would...

So, oxidizing the wort before pitching can speed up fermentation, with no undesirable effects? I've had trouble with oxidized-tasting beer, and have been skipping this step. One reason that I like to rack the beer into secondary (in a carboy) is that there is less headspace, and (I presume)...

The reason I was not taking specific gravity readings was that it was such a pain to take samples. This is my improved method, that makes it easy: I have an 'Auto Siphon' racking tube. I found that if I remove the inner racking cane, I can insert just the outer cylinder into my beer, and it...

Just to follow up: my beer came out very nicely. I put the bottles in my closet to finish, where the temperature is steady. And after 4 weeks they were very nice, and not over carbonated either. And no explosions. I guess this just demonstrates how forgiving beer can be. Or maybe how lucky I...

Thanks, guys. I will change my fermentation schedule. And I've ordered a wine thief, so I can more easily take hydrometer readings.

I made a batch of ale. The starting specific gravity was 44. Today I bottled it. The gravity at bottling was 14. Did I screw up? Will my beer explode? This was a dark ale with half a pound of crystal malt (which I understand has some non-fermentable sugar) so that may increase terminal...