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Not sure what you mean? I normally can carb up a keg in a few days by opening the regulator all the way (45-50 PSI)-

I'm interested in brewing a pair of beers that have markedly different colors and final gravities, so that I can pour them both in the same glass and have them not mix (commonly known as a "Black and Tan", but I'd name it something else.) What are some things to do to make a beer have an...

Yeah, I haven't brewed beer before (unless you count brewing from a kit)- there's an Elizabethan reenactment group out here that I drum for from time to time, and the last time they set up a tavern, they were serving "small beer" that was just watered down Henry Weinhard's Dark. I figured that...

Thanks- that sounds like a good reference. I just put in an order for it.

Weird- the guy at the store said to boil the grains for an hour, and the original recipe (written by George Washington) from 1750 called for a 3 hour boil- I also found a recipe online that called for boiling the grains. Anyway, I'll see how it comes out.

I'm researching historical "small" beer for purposes of reenactment and coming up with a good-tasting, low-alcohol beer that can be enjoyed all day without all that messy passing out business. Has anyone tried this before? (Nothing came up in a search). Here's what I've got going so far (I'm...

I had this problem- garage was too cold, and fermentation wouldn't start. Now my batches are sitting in a bathroom closet with a space heater on low, and bubbling along nicely (I'm going with a bathroom instead of any other room for the non-carpeted floor in case of disaster.)

When the yeasts ferment, what gases are put off by the process? I moved my fermenting from the garage (too cold), to a basement bathroom closet (still pretty cold)- it's pretty rank in there, but I was wondering if the gases put off are either toxic or flammable? I want to put a space heater...

I've noticed that one pound of sugar will raise the potential alcohol of one gallon of must by 5 percent, so you'll want half a pound of sugar (pretty close to the nine ounces above). This has been pretty consistent in all the batches I've done.

Thanks! Good information- I was wondering why my last two batches didn't start fermenting, thinking it was the refrigerated yeast, but it turns out it was too cold in the garage! I moved them inside and they're bubbling away happily-

Couple of quick procedural questions: --Since I've been making 1 gal test batches, the way I've been using yeast is to mix in with water and nutrient and storing the unused liquid in the fridge in a Glad container. Is this going to hurt the yeast's ability to do its thing? --Lactose is...

I've heard that homebrewed beer gives you less hangovers because of the B vitamins left behind by the yeasts. This is making me want to fortify my cider with B complexes, for this very reason...

Excellent advice- thanks for your help! For the priming sugar, is that 3/4 cup per gallon, per bottle, or per 5-gallon batch?

So, I'm trying to learn to make cider well before my trees start bearing fruit and I can start making it from scratch (all my batches are for test, made in gallon jugs)- Still a little shaky on some items though- -- I get that "racking" means transferring the liquid to another vessel, but...

From what I've heard, if you brew in a location long enough, brewing yeast crowds out the local native yeasts in the environment, so beer made in an old brewery will just be better than first-run homebrew since it's only being contaiminated with more brewing yeast. I've heard a rumor about a...

I've been reading that with a very high alcohol percentage (14%), the cider will need to mellow for a good year or two before being drinkable. If I wanted to make a cider that would only take, say, a month or so to mellow, how strong should it be approximately?

Thanks- this is very helpful! So, to clarify, "stabilizing" with sorbate and sulfite will "turn off" the yeast (kill, etc) so you can then safely sweeten or bottle without producing more alcohol or making bombs?

Was going to wait until I had a bunch of these, but the list was getting long: My hydrometer defines "balling" as the sugar content of a liquid. I read that this comes from the inventer of the scale (Karl Balling), but has this term mutated into the verb "to ball" meaning "to add sugar", or...

Thanks! The primary fermenter I'm using has a tap on it, so I don't need to open it to take a reading. There's no more sugar in it though (specific gravity was close to 1), so I don't see how it's going to get any stronger unless I add more...

Hi- I came back from a trip to BC with three gallons of hand-pressed cider in a cooler, and decided to try my hand at turning it into booze. Two weeks later, it's reading 14 percent and it's sounding like it needs to mellow for a good long time... Making it was so much fun that I'm going to...