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Thanks for the heads up. I just went ahead and bought a bottle of Iodophor since I have some things I need to sanitize soon. In the future I plan to do more research on other potential options outside of the homebrewing hobby as I found a wide range of things like no-rinse milk tank cleaners...

Hello, Ran out of Star San and I'm thinking about trying something different to save some $. I saw some old threads online of people making an Iodine solution to sanitize and claiming it is no-rinse if diluted to the proper amounts. I had seen a number of products for the dairy industry but...

Haha, sorry. I meant 7oz for the entire 6 gallons! lol I did end up in the ER this year due to a homebrewing accident but that was from dropping a carboy not bottle bombs.

I have a number of gallons of cider that's been aging for a few months in the carboys and I'm ready to start bottling it and bottle carbing. It's made with store bought apple juice and although its turned out decent in the past it's usually pretty "flat" tasting. This time I added some wine...

Sounds good, I'll give it a try with a 5 gallon batch and report back.

I recently discovered that Walmart sells 100% bottled pear juice and was curious if anyone had tried making a perry cider from it. I checked the ingredients to see if it was blending with apple juice but it was not so it go me curious and I think I might give it a try. I imagine that true...

Ok, I went ahead and started up 2X 6.5 gallon batches. One with SO-4 which is what I've been using lately and the other with Wyeast 1388 yeast. Fermenting the SO-4 at 60F and the 1388 at 67F which I think should be right at their preferred temps. No other differences. I also have some D47 and...

Has anyone used 1388 yeast before in a cider?

I have my first BOMM going which just hit 1-month and I have a question. SG was 1.134 and it is now sitting at 1.022 which means it should have an ABV of 14.7%. I've mostly been fermenting it right at 70F but it may have gone down to 60F for a while which slowed it down and now I'm thinking the...

What yeast did you settle on?

Thanks for the advice. When you talk about age can I expect something at it's peak in a couple months after primary or are we talking 6+ months before bottling? I'm just curious on what to expect with a mead in the 7-9% abv range vs a 12-14% mead that might have off flavors when young. I'll...

Hi, new meadmaker here. I have a traditional, a cyser and a BOMM in progress or aging currently but I wanted to make a hydromel I could drink later this summer which would be simple, relatively inexpensive and drinkable relatively quickly. Not sure what to expect but here is my plan so far for a...

I currently have a 5 gallon batch of simple apple wine bubbling away using EC-1118 and had some questions on step-feeding protocol. First off, I'm kind of just doing this as an experiment to learn about step-feeding, practice my nutrient feeding and reading a hydrometer and really just to see...

I was thinking that might be a good way to try a sack mead without having to use so much honey. First ferment inverted sugar to bump up the alcohol content before adding the honey to the approx level of sweetness you might want past the tolerance of the yeast strain. If the sugar doesn't...

Thank you for the advice. You're right, I checked my gravity and it had already moved down to 1.05! I have been shaking and swirly the carboy daily, stopping as soon as it foams up and waiting for the bubbles to go down before repeating the process. I did it for probably 10 minutes today but...

Hello, I just started my first ever batch of mead and after doing some reading I'm planning on utilizing yeast nutrient and yeast energizer to help the fermentation and hopefully speed up the process required to have an enjoyable drink. I added yeast nutrient and energizer when I started a...

Ok guys, I appreciate all the input. I now have 12 gallons of apple juice fermenting with SO4 and will try bottle carbing 6 gallons fully dry with the corn sugar and the other 6 I'll try for the semi-sweet variation using the juice concentrate. I still have a lots of corn sugar left over and...

Thanks for the advice. I will pick up some SO4 yeast to try and will leave out the additional sugar. That makes sense regarding the aging/mellowing process as I always noticed the apfelwein tastes way better once it's around 6 months old and some of the apple taste/smell seems to return. I...

Sorry if this has been discussed previously, I've been making Edwort's apfelwein for several years and enjoyed the ease of it and the taste of the finished product but I'm looking to change it up. I'm looking for something that is similarly easy and cheap to brew but has less of the wine-like...

Hello, I'm new to home brewing and I'm interested in brewing a spruce beer. I've done a little research on it and I found it interesting that in its simplest form spruce beer is nothing more then fresh spruce shoots boiled in water, and then sugar/molasses and yeast is added. It was...