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Hey guys, A buddy of mine replaced his water heater, but tore the old one apart to get at the copper for scrap before taking it to the dump. I got the heat exchanger from him for a couple of homebrews, and now I'm trying to decide what the best thing to do with it is. I've attached a pic...

60 was fermentation temp (as measured by the fermometer on the outside of my better bottle, I assume it's pretty close to internal temp.) Altbiers are actually ales, but they're one of those "hybrid" styles, kind of like kolsch. You use an ale yeast and ferment them about as cold as that...

Thanks kgg, I hope I have the same results! It's really an ale, but it got lagered, so your experience is probably still applicable.

I'm hoping you guys can clear up a question for me. I made a Brewer's Best Altbier kit and hit my OG and FG fine. I let it ferment all the way out (3 weeks at 60°F), then ramped it down to a 40°F fridge and let it sit there for 6 weeks. The bottles carbed fine (actually kind of...

I should give one more update... I tried the beer again last night, and it seemed a little better actually. That gives me a question... Since it was an altbier, I lagered it for 6 weeks at around 40°F (20°F less than fermentation temp, but I figured that was ok since I let it ferment all the...

Haha, I was pretty busy last night. I got a chance to check my notes. I used Safale S-05, not S-04, but I'm not really sure how much the yeast strain has to do with it. I know I'm way too new to home brewing to start pointing fingers at yeast manufacturers. For the first batch of sour...

I'll check my notes when I get home...

I'm having recurring issues with a sour taste in my beers. It is clean and reminiscent of plain yogurt, not overpowering but definitely noticeable. It seems to taste a lot better when the beer is warmer, but is still there. There are no vinegary or apple/cider flavors with the sourness. On...

That's not bad... Thanks again. I had to put on a blowoff tube though. I'm a little irritated that it can't get oxygen into the starter, but it's better than having yeast all over the counter.

Thanks aseg! I actually had to switch to covering it with foil, it blows the stopper off about once every 10 mins :-P That's a good one. I'm also thinking "Thar she blows!" I could even do something a little fun with the label for the dirtier minds among us ;)

Last night (Friday) I made a starter, about 1.5L, standard 1.04-ish gravity, and pitched a smack pack of Wyeast 1056 American Ale. I'm doing it in a 1/2 gallon growler, and did not leave sufficient headroom. When I came downstairs this morning, the starter had pushed the foam stopper out...

RDWHAHB! It can take a while to cool off. Next time try to tweak your process to make it better, that's part of the fun!

Check out the Mr. Malty pitching rate calculator for your amount of yeast... I don't want to discourage you, but I tried a 1.075 brew for my first, and it didn't come out very well. It had a LOT of off flavors that I think came from stressed yeast. I had (and still have) a lot of learning...

Papazian has a recipe for a spruce beer in his book...

Oh I hate that... It happened to me last time too. Everything was covered with star-san, and I think my stopper was harder and a little more "smooth" than the one I usually use. I ended up using cling wrap to tie down the stopper in the same way that someone above mentioned using tape and...

I don't think it's necessarily underpowered, a ton of people here use 5V supplies (and the OP, Anthony Lopez, has said that's all anyone should really need.) Yours should probably be fine, especially since it has twice the max current of the one I tried to use. Mine worked at 5v but i wanted...

It's a little hard to tell from the pic, but it looks like your quick disconnects on the potentiometer might be touching each other. That would short the circuit around the pot, essentially making it like it's not even there. If it's not that, then I'd ask how you were sure it isn't changing...

Hmmm... There are an awful lot of people in this thread saying "I'm going to go try a garlic beer!" with zero results so far. I strongly suspect that they are dead. Let this be a lesson to us all.

I had the same sort of situation you did for my first batch, and I bought new hops and grains to brew with. The beer still didn't come out great, but it was beer, and I drank it all. I used it as a "practice" brew (second ever, after a 3 year break from the first) and figured I wouldn't give a...

There seems to be a lot of ways of doing it. The Homebrew Wiki site has a great writeup callee Fermenting Lagers. It's by far the best explanation I have seen yet! I was reading post after post, reading and re-reading Palmer/Papazian, etc. and I was still confused as to whether lagering =...