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I'm thinking of starting to can my own wort to make starters easier to make (thanks Homercidal for the idea on another thread). I started watching videos online on youtube, looks pretty easy. one video I saw looked fascinating - add DME to water in the jars, cook it in the pressure cooker at 15...

I bough another ball lock keg. Looks great on the outside. I went to break it down and clean it. I can't get the posts off. The hand of Thor must have tightened them last. I have a deep ratchet set, I attach it and hit it with a hammer to try and loosen them, no luck. Anyone have any tricks...

So I wanted to try a Wyeast smack pack, just to try one. I smacked it, let it start growing, and started brew day. I didn't read the instructions close enough, and went a little over board with my grains, and buy batch is going to be well above the 1.060 they recommend for the smack pack. I...

I have looked at a ton of videos on youtube re: harvesting yeast. Everyone starts with boiling the jars that they are going to ultimately use to sterilize them. Is there any problem with just soaking them in starsan? seems like it would be a lot easier, and a lot less likely to burn off my...

Anyone had a good immersible supplemental heating element they would recommend? Looking for something in the 1,000 Watt range, something along the lines of this...

I used a snow bath in the sink all winter to chill wort, and then ice. I just started using a cooper immersion wort chiller. I have cold unlimited well water. Should I run it at as high a pressure I can, to push as much cold water through it as I can, or should I run it slower to give the cold...

So I just ordered a Grainfather. I need a separate sparge water vessel. I have a extra boiler pot that I was going to use. My thought was, knock a hole in it towards the bottom, put a valve in, hook up some tubing, and I'm good to go. Having never built anything like this, want to make sure...

The Grainfather went on sale last night in the US. Ordered one, can't wait for it to arrive.

So, for many people jumping into home brewing, I believe the most common set up is to start with buckets. I know that is the way I got started. Too many horror stories about glass breaking / hard to clean / etc. I brewed my first 10 or so batches in buckets, and had no idea what I was missing...

I just received by first plastic big mouth bubbler. Seems pretty cool, but I have seen lots of comments about difficulties in getting a tight seal of the lid. I can't believe the plastic one doesn't come with a gasket for the lid. Has anyone found a decent gasket which will help better seal up...

Dumb question, I brewed some but don't know how to pronounce it. How do you pronounce the Helles in Munich Helles? Is it "HELL-US", "HELLS", "HEALS", "HELS", "HELL-ES"? I'm guessing the first.

So I was putting a batch of the Northern Brewer Chinook IPA into a keg this morning, and proving that anything which can go wrong will go wrong - I was standing there, watching the beer siphon from the fermentor to the keg, reach in my pocket, take out a nicorette lozenger, go to put it in my...

So I have a dual tap kegerator, which I try and keep fulled on both taps via the homebrew pipeline. I didn't plan this rotation out too well. I just kicked one keg tonight, and the next batch is ready to be kegged, but it is the northern brewer Chinook IPA, and forgot the 1 week dry hop step...

If I have a batch which is going to be ready about 4 days to a week before I have a spot in my kegerator for it, can I add like half the priming sugar to it, to get carbonation going, and then finish the carbonation in the kegerator on the CO2? That way, in theory, it takes less time to be...

So I think my next batch is going to be the Northern Brewer Cream Ale extract kit. I figure if I make a summer beer, it has to get warm out right? When I got the kit, I ordered the 5 oz bottling sugar pack too. I have since bought a kegerator and some kegs, so I'm going to keg this one. I have...

So, these local beer store charges a 30 deposit for 1/6 kegs filled with sam adams. I'm buying a couple of kegs for homebrew. But $30 is way less than I can get a reconditioned keg delivered here for. sooooooooo, is it ok to "forget" to timely return it, eat the $30 charge, and use it at home...

I have one of the generic hand held wing cappers to cap my bottles. I hate the thing, I always feel like I'm going to pop the top right off the bottles. I looked online at the bench cappers, but many of the reviews of many of them are iffy. Anyone have a good one that doesn't cost a fortune that...

I know this may sound like a dumb question, but I can't find an answer. I've read and read and read, and every time I think I have it locked down, I read something else which makes me more confused. I just ordered my first kegerator...

Any reason you couldn't use the 5 gallon water bottles we get at the office for fermentation (secondary?). they are good quality plastic, and a lot lighter and easier to carry than a glass carboy, have a handle built in, won't kill you if it breaks, and readily obtainable?

Summer is coming. Possibly. Maybe. Any good summer extract kits you can recommend to try out? I want to brew now, so it is ready if this snow ever leaves.