fermentation

A Series of Unfortunate Brewing Accidents It happens multiple times throughout a homebrewers career. You do your best to prevent mishaps large and small, but at the end of the day, human error is judge jury and executioner. Usually no one actually gets hurt in these accidents, and looking back...

You hear it over and over again - controlling the fermentation temperature is the key to great tasting beer. And it's true. A glorious brew day can be ruined by forgetting about your beer once it enters the fermenter. Don't neglect the cold side! On this topic I get business school flashbacks of...

Hi I am pretty new to homebrewing so this might be quite the rookie question, but.... So far i have brewed 2 batches where i have "controlled" the fermentation temperature by regulating floor heating and reading the temperature of the room by measuring the temperature in a water bottle standing...

I've decided to take the plunge during the lockdown. I recently started a Cru International Australian Cabernet Sauvignon wine kit with the Master Vintner kit from Midwest Supplies. I am on day 15 of my kit. Unfortunately, the hydrometer was missing from my kit, and I'm yet to request a...

I have a goal of creating a universal fermentation schedule, or rather, a schedule that fits just about any ale, regardless of style or gravity. Ideally, I would be enjoying this hobby in my retirement, with little distractions from work or kids. Unfortunately, I'm years away, but still have a...

Hello everyone! I have a couple of questions about my first brew! A couple of years ago I bought a Festival Belgian Dubbel kit (complete with plastic fermentation vessel, bottles, sanitizer, etc) and 2 weeks ago I started the primary fermentation. Now I`m looking for some suggestions before...

Hello, I am looking at getting some more fermentation vessels for my setup so that I can have multiple beers fermenting or aging at once. I am currently in college with 3 roommates + whoever comes around on the weekends so we go through 10 gallons pretty quickly at our place. A local...

I'm busy with my first brew, so totally green and rely on what I read online. I bought a MG stater brewing kit just before lockdown (South Africa) which came with a MG Lucky Goat Pale Ale malt extract pack. Sanitised as well as I could, OG seemed right at 1.050, after 10 days the gravity was...

Hello, everyone. I finally arrived at a temperature control set up that exponentially improved my brews. I have a thermowell in my fermentor inside of a chest freezer with a fermwrap on one of the walls of the freezer. This has worked incredibly well. I'm using an inkbird wifi to control...

Hey, I have a Morebeer 14 gallon conical with temperature control, but it just has a peltier chiller. I have since purchased a UBC glycol chiller. I plan on adding some sort of Chiller coil. The wife doesn't want a conical in her living room, so this is a necessity if its going to be in the...

Hello, I've started doing two BIAB recipes using allgrain. In the past, I've done BIAB with extract and specialty grain, and have consistently exceeded my target ABV. These last two BIAB's I've decided to try all grain with no extract. My issue is both my last brews have been severely UNDER...

I put my vinegar fermenting vessels inside black, opaque bags because I've read that, mother of vinegar must be placed away from light sources, for it to effectively ferment alcohol into acetic acid. So I have 2 questions because I never knew why: 1. Why is that? 2. What happens to acetobacter...

Greetings! I maxed out my yeast with a 1.107 OG beer. I used WY1318 which only has a tolerance of 10% ABV, so instead of finishing at 1.031, it finished at 1.034. At this point, can I add fermentable sugars like honey and not have the yeast ferment them? More info: I mashed this stout at 149...

Hello everyone! First post. Sorry if it doesn't belongs to this board. I'm brewing a raspberry weizen, and after a week from throwing the raspberries into the fermentor a kind of salty crystals started forming on top of the fruit. I know them turning white is normal, but had never heard about...

After consulting Dr Google i understand: 1. If too hot the yeast will freak out and I’ll risk a banana/solvent flavours 2. If too cold the yeast won’t ferment the sugars Is that correct? What about during fermentation? Can’t seem to find anything explaining what could happen if temperature...

I have a bucket of stout I worked really hard on, and I'm pretty sure it's reached FG, but there's a smell to it that doesn't seem right. I'm going to try putting it in secondary for a while to see if it subsides. Two questions: 1) The smell I think is similar to vinegar, all I can pair it to...

I am sure this is nothing new with the folks that frequent here... I have experimented around with Arduino in the past quite a bit. Anyone ever build a fermentation monitor using one (Or Pi)? They have O2 sensors, CO2 sensors, and ethanol sensors. Add that to a graphical display, and you could...

So I’m making my first batch, and I’m following the instructions I have for the yeast of 30-35 degrees Celsius. I’ve noticed the honey has pretty much sunk to the bottom of the solution though. I’ve tried reddit and been told this means the fermentation will be quite hard to get going properly...

Hi everybody. I just ran into a pretty unique situation while kegging some hard cider today and after digging through the forum and some google searches, couldn't quite find an answer to this one. I noticed 2 small floating mold-like objects floating at the top of my hard cider. Each were...

This year's Cider I decided I'd try and speed things along a little by adding some commercial wine makers malolactic bacteria to get my ph3.1 up a little. It's been at it a month with lots of small bubbles and it's pretty much depleted. the cider was at sg 1.020 campden'ed to kill of the yeast...