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B-Hoppy, No, I don't grow them in a container. I have the 3 varieties spaced around my yard. It'd be interesting if they'd even grow in containers since they have such a big root system.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll give it a try.

This is my 4th year of growing hops. I plant Cascade, Centennial and Williamette here in New England. In years past the Centennial have been the most robust followed by the Cascade with the Williamette the less of the three. This year both the Centennial and the Cascade did very poorly. They...

I always thought that the AA% would be less too but now I'm not so sure. I've brewed several batches using a combination of pellet and my own homegrown hops and when compared to batches I've brewed of the same beer in the past the ones with my own hops seem to have more of a bite to them. Just...

West Branch Brew & Tap. Kind of self explanatory. I live on the West Branch River and we converted our kitchen into a tap room where I also brew. It's the same house I grew up in. I try to name the beers I make after local landmarks, people or things I remember growing up. Just makes it fun.

I just brewed up a 10.5 gallon ale this past weekend and put 5.25 gallons each into 2 primary bucket fermenters and added a vial of White Labs WLP 051 to each after aerating both with oxygen. Everything was the same, stored in the same room at the same temperature. Now one of them is working...

I was just sitting here thinking about this and it just struck me that I didn't put CO2 to the keg at all to disperse any oxygen that would be in there after I transferred the beer. Is that something I should do? It wasn't a very active fermentation at all when I kegged it so I don't know that...

I just went to keg a 10 gallon batch into 2 kegs and noticed by the hydrometer reading that it looks like it should ferment more. It'd been fermenting in the primary for a week and longer than that in the secondary and the beer is actually pretty clear. But I want it to ferment a bit longer even...

I just tried the swamp cooler idea since reading this. The real high temps are about over now though but thought I'd try it anyway.

Airborneguy, I was hoping that might be the case. The fermentation did start pretty well before the heat set in so I'm hoping for minimal impact. I'm going to be transferring it to the secondary tomorrow. This is the 2nd time I've brewed this particular recipe and the first time it came out...

OK, so I brewed a 10 gallon batch a week ago which was last Friday evening. Here in the northeast we've had a few days of mid to upper 90 degree heat. Our old house doesn't have AC and the room where I keep the fermenting brew got up to at least 80 for the past few days. Not good, I don't think...

I wasn't sure where this should go so I put it here. I was just thinking about making a single tier brew structure after my last 10 gallon batch and the challenges it gave me. Having everything organized and right there would be pretty nice. If it did do a brew structure I'd have to do my...

One broken, probably due to letting PBW sit in it too long. It was empty and had been sitting there some time since I last used it. Went to pick it up and the bottom stayed on the floor! Checked 3 other glass ones I had and 2 of them had cracks in the bottom. Got a Better Bottle but screwed up...

I've had some brews I've done have a bitter after taste and can't figure out why. Right now I don't think it's the water because I did a batch at my brothers place with him once using his well water and it had a strong bitter bite at the end. Also I've brewed beers here at home using my spring...

Sorry if this has been answered already somewhere but I've been looking through the threads and not really found what I'm looking for. I currently do 5 gallon batches batch sparging and using a 48qt cooler/mash tun I made. It works great and holds temps really well. I'm now interested in trying...

I've been brewing pretty steady for several years now. I mainly brew 5 gallon all grain batches using the batch sparge method and glass carboys as a secondary fermentor. I have 4 carboys and some time ago I noticed that 2 of them had roughly 2" cracks in the bottom. I couldn't figure out why but...

I've been brewing for a few years now and I've always put my hop additions in a muslin bag. I mostly use pellets but last year grew some of my own hops so have started to use some of those on occasion. My question is would I get more hops utilization if I didn't put my additions in a muslin...

That brings me to another question I was going to post on here but I'll start a different topic so as not to hijack this thread.

Golddiggie, what do you do about the cold break. I whirlpooled before I started running it through the chiller. If I recirculate it I won't be able to separate the cold break, will I?

I just purchased a 20 plate chiller from Keg Cowboy and used it for the first time on Saturday. So much better than the immersion chiller I was using. I brew 5 gallon batches and if I had to do it over again I'd get at least a 30 plate chiller. I'm in MA and my water is cool enough but I had it...