After getting through most of Charlie P's Joy of Homebrewing and what my wife calls an obsession with reading forums on HBT I have not learned my lesson. I've been brewing for about 8 months now and still get some anxiety when things don't go as i think they should. The weird part is that aside from brewing, i'm very relaxed and tend to not worry enough about things.
I just started brewing Partial Mash and have 1 somewhat successful pale ale that i brewed since graduating from extract brewing. About 1 1\2 months ago I brewed a milk stout that had an OG of 1.060 and it's been stuck at 1.030 since i racked to secondary about a month ago. I'm worried about attenuation but wondering if maybe it's the 1lb of Lactose that is responsible for my high gravity reading as Lactose is not a fermentable sugar. I'm thinking about pitching more yeast but something tells me i need to chill out and leave it alone.
Then there's the IPA I brewed 9 days ago that I just racked to secondary today. It's not as bitter as i was hoping. It was supposed to be an Imperial IPA but due to a horrible boilover (pre hop addition) my OG wasn't high enough so i didn't add as many bittering hops as originally planned. I'm wondering if i could just boil some hops in water and add to the secondary to increase IBU's. Again, there's that voice in my head telling me to leave it alone.
I must say that i formulated both recipes myself based on other recipes i found online and some educated guesstimating based on previous experiences. I'd appreciate any feedback that anyone is willing to give.Cheers!
I just started brewing Partial Mash and have 1 somewhat successful pale ale that i brewed since graduating from extract brewing. About 1 1\2 months ago I brewed a milk stout that had an OG of 1.060 and it's been stuck at 1.030 since i racked to secondary about a month ago. I'm worried about attenuation but wondering if maybe it's the 1lb of Lactose that is responsible for my high gravity reading as Lactose is not a fermentable sugar. I'm thinking about pitching more yeast but something tells me i need to chill out and leave it alone.
Then there's the IPA I brewed 9 days ago that I just racked to secondary today. It's not as bitter as i was hoping. It was supposed to be an Imperial IPA but due to a horrible boilover (pre hop addition) my OG wasn't high enough so i didn't add as many bittering hops as originally planned. I'm wondering if i could just boil some hops in water and add to the secondary to increase IBU's. Again, there's that voice in my head telling me to leave it alone.
I must say that i formulated both recipes myself based on other recipes i found online and some educated guesstimating based on previous experiences. I'd appreciate any feedback that anyone is willing to give.Cheers!