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I'm a big bourbon guy, and some friends and I recently bought a barrel of Four Roses bourbon. The whiskey is fantastic, and now I've got this 55-gallon barrel just begging me to fill it with something. I'd like to do a mead. I've done about a dozen or so batches of mead with varying success...

I made a Pliny the Bastid this weekend that called for 1.5 oz of Chinook hops in the mash, and I completely forgot to add it until it was too late. :o But I felt a little comfort from when some friends with much more experience than me said they didn't think mash hopping really makes much...

I'm fairly confident that I'm hitting the temps overall since my beers have been coming out fine, but when I take readings after dough-in, the variation from one part of the MLT to another is substantial. I'm using a 60qt Ice Cube, and have been having the same problem with both 5-gal and...

I've used Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) on a few batches already to raise pH; few times to restart a stuck fermentation and another to preemptively keep one going. It seems to do the trick, but I have yet to taste test any of them to see if it leaves a chalky taste. After reading hightest's FAQ...

A buddy ordered some bulk honey in 5 gallon buckets and offered to sell me some. I went over there to get 15 lbs, and we had the toughest time pouring the honey into jars. The pour always started really wide before it started to thin up to fit nicely in the jars. We made a huge mess. Is...

I use GoFerm with my dry wine yeasts, but I was wondering about using it when rehydrating my Safale 05. Any thoughts?

I was reorganizing some of my carboys today, so I took a secondary of cyser from the garage (~45 degrees F) to my fermentation room (~65 degrees F). When I picked it up, I noticed that it was pretty clear. This was unexpected since it was pitched only 3 months ago. Then after sitting in the...

I have a nice little room under the stairs that usually keeps a pretty steady temperature. Lately it had been getting in the low 50s (Farenheit), so I got a space heater with a thermostat. Evidently something went wrong either yesterday or the day before because this evening I went in and the...

Charlie Papazian seems to be a fan of the acid blends in show meads, but Ken Schramm says in The Compleat Meadmaker to wait until fermentation has stopped before adding any, if at all. I've got a handful of different show meads in primary right now. They all had relatively high pH... in...

I am on day 16 of my quick & tasty cider. If you don't feel like clicking the link, it's basically just 18 cans of apple juice concentrate, 36 cans worth of water (for ~5gal total), and Safale-05 yeast. Fermentation temp has varied from 58-63F. Dec 11 - OG 1.062 Dec 21 - 1.034 Dec 25 -...

I got some crushed grains for what was going to be my first AG brew. But I decided to try something easier first, so I can test things out and be ready to drink it within a few weeks. So looks like I've got ~12 lbs. of crushed grains that I'll be holding on to for minimum of a week, possibly...

Hello from Nashville. New member, new AG brewer, long time lurker, and long time extract brewer here to say hi. :ban: I am doing my first AG batch this weekend. I feel pretty well prepped having been reading here for a while. I'm also a relatively new mead brewer. :tank: