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We recently bought a house and inherited a fair number of grapevines, both Merlot and Cabernet. (I can't tell them apart; they all look like little red grapes to me.) I figure this is a good opportunity to try a druivenbier. Things I've heard about this style mainly from searching...

Anyone have a good source for a "tub" that fits a 5gal corny pretty well? Looking for something I can fill with ice and keep a corny cold for 12hrs or so. I've been looking for a 12" diameter 24" high garbage pail or something from Home Depot but no luck yet.

My first partigyle beer didn't turn out too well. The first beer was a sweet stout, and I hoped the second running would be a brown. (Instead it tasted like brown carbonated water plus tannins.) Apparently the mistake I made was in fly sparging instead of batch sparging. So I'm looking for...

Not sure whether to put this in DIY or here but: Looking at a build and was thinking about boil kettle height. Gravity feed would be great but I have to recirculate for my HLT anyway (it's electric) which means I need a pump there to begin with. However, I like the idea of eliminating the...

So I'm not quite ready to build a complete system (although I am getting a concrete pad poured on the side of the house in preparation) but I am starting to get components together so I can experiment with them prior to deciding to use them in a build. Does anyone have any suggestions for...

With the water temps I have, I can get 5 gallons to 74F in about 10 minutes with a Chillzilla. For the ales I do, I just oxygenate and pitch the yeast right then and there. Then it goes in the fermentation chamber which gets set to whatever is appropriate. But what about the lagers? I...

Any news on where Green Flash is moving to? I've heard Flanders Road in Mira Mesa, but that's just a rumor so far. Anyone else heard anything?

We're pretty lucky here in San Diego; seems like you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a new microbrewery. Just used Scribble Maps to figure out my distances: Nearest microbreweries: Hess 1 mile, Callahan's (San Diego Brewing) 1 mile, Alesmith 1.2 miles, Ballast Point 3 miles Nearest...

When I use the Minibrew (plastic) HLT to source hot water, I get a lot of condensation on the lid. It seeps over the edge onto the lip of the lid and then drips on everything, including the connection to the heater element. Anyone else have this problem, or know of any solutions? (other than...

I've been using a Minibrew electric HLT to heat water lately, but I'm having problems with temperature stratification. The first gallon or so I pull from the bottom tap is 20-30F below the temperature shown by the thermometer (about six inches above it, much closer to the element.) I assume...

I have a saison almost ready to go into bottles (3 weeks in fermentor so far.) I made it with WLP565 even after reading all the dire warnings about how this yeast tends to stall. Even the manufacturer said that many people use WLP001 to finish the fermentation. Well, it took a little longer...

The BMC switcheroo thread got me thinking about this: My wife and I have this routine going. I'll get home first and get a bottle of something out, pour it and be drinking it when she gets home. "What's that?" she asks "Guess," I'll say. (And of course she does the same to me.) I...

Listened to a talk by a researcher from White Labs last night at the San Diego QUAFF meeting. She talked about pitching yeast for high gravity ales (above about 1.090.) For one experiment, she did four starter sizes, from small to large, each one twice as large as the last. (I don't remember...

Just heard the results from the Hangar 24 competition. Blue Skies Brewing entered seven beers; results: Diamond Dubbel - Belgian Ale - gold Bigway Brown - English Brown Ale - silver Swooper Stout - American Stout - silver I'm really happy about the results, but also found it a little...

I had my first case of truly dead yeast last weekend. I was making a raspberry lambic using Wyeast 3278 lambic blend. I activated it about two hours before pitching. There was some swelling but I wasn't sure whether that was from fermentation or the packet just warming up. I've been...

Just to see how fast I could start a fermentation I did the following experiment: Made two batches of brown with a super simple extract recipe. The first one sat in the carboy for a week then I transferred it to secondary. For the second I cooled it to about 120F then poured that along with...

Did an experiment last month, a SMaSH with american two-row, German Tradition hops and US-05 yeast. It was based loosely on the "SMaSHing Blonde Ale" in the recipe database here, which got good reviews. Anyway tried it for the first time this week - and it tastes amazingly like Miller. I...

I have yet another shortcut that allows me to start brewing at 6 and have it in the fermentor by 10:30 - After I recirculate the first wort, I start draining into the brewkettle. As soon as I have about an inch of wort I start the burner and get it boiling. I generally get it to a boil...

Wanted something that would fit in the fridge, so I made a 3gal fermentor out of a refrigerator water bottle, some tubing and a yeast vial. Seems to work pretty well and fits in the fridge. Limits me to a half batch though.

I did a wheat last week, and the mash profile called for 10 minutes at 120F and then an hour at 150F. So I figured out water amounts, and a plain infusion would have required too much boiling water in the mash to get to 150F. Instead I tried doing a sort of a decoction mash; taking off...