Recent content by bjacokes

To update: I kegged a few days ago, had a few tasty (unsalted) pints, and then did some side-by-side glasses with various amounts of salt. I found 1.25-2.0 grams of NaCl per gallon to be a sweet spot where the salt was not overbearing, but its character was noticeable. As ajdelange noted...

To the earlier poster asking about "final beer" – this would be added to the keg. Interesting, so it's the bicarbonate itself that would be the off-flavor if I weren't to neutralize it. Baking soda in water generally just tastes salty to me, but maybe I'll try sodium chloride water vs...

I'm still curious what flavor/mouthfeel effects would result from making the beer too alkaline. I believe I've heard "astringent" used for beers with a high mash pH – is that likely to happen even if the alkalinity is added to the final beer?

Thanks for the detailed info. To clarify, you're implying that the bicarbonate contributed by 0.75-1.0 grams per gallon of baking soda will be noticeable and negative in the final beer, even with 3% acidulated malt in the mash? Even if that's the case, I'll probably test a sodium chloride +...

Haven't considered soda ash or sodium sulfate. I'll do some research into how those would affect the mineral levels. As for chloride, it's possible that the added sodium is part of the problem here. I.e. 250 ppm chloride and 100 ppm sodium is very different from 250 ppm chloride and low sodium...

I'm currently fermenting a "salted New England IPA" for a style-of-the-month competition, and got myself in a tricky situation. On brew day, I added 2g gypsum and 6g calcium chloride to my mash, after reading that New England IPAs have a high chloride level. This gave me approximately 130 ppm...

I kegged up a beer about a month ago with a tank of CO2 which started at 950psi and slowly dropped to 900psi as the beer carbonated. It stayed right around the 900psi mark for a few weeks, over which time I poured several beers, but when I came back from a five-day holiday vacation it was...

I made this recipe with Pacman last weekend and it's currently fermenting around 60F. I'm actually kind of hoping to keg it and drink 14 days after brewing (having friends over), but in addition to having little experience with Pacman, I also rarely drink beers less than a month after brewing...

It might be partly due to the fact that I filled this carboy almost to the top -- the bubbles do seem to cause more of a stir on the surface when they're concentrated over a couple of square inches, and maybe that's leading to the quarter inch of foam as well. Other than that, I don't really...

After a 6-week primary with WLP530 that took my beer from 1.058 to 1.007, I racked to secondary and added 3 tbsp of yeast slurry that I had built up from Russian River Damnation dregs. I was prepared for a few months of little observable fermentation, which is what has generally happened when I...

For my first BW I used the no-boil technique, cooled to 90F within 15min, let the lacto take hold for two days before adding the yeast, etc etc. I got a *funky* smell coming out of the carboy as soon as the lacto started to bubble (before the yeast was added). I would describe it as smelling...

I got more info and gave this a shot a few months ago, although it was a fair bit off from the real thing. As a side note, I had a Daisy Cutter from the can a couple of weeks ago and it seems quite a bit hoppier than it did 12+ months ago when I first had it. In my opinion the less hoppy...

You could probably get close with MO, british crystal 60L, and some toasted/biscuit malt... your choice of English hopping schedule. I also happened to hear that it came out of a homebrew recipe: http://www.tedbrews.com/

I've heard about good results from letting flameout hop additions steep at 180F, but that lacks one advantage of dry hopping, namely avoiding the scrubbing action of the yeast. Which raises the question -- why not try a 180F hop steep after fermentation? This is basically pasteurization with a...

120F, 133F (then pulled+heated 1qt), 150F (pulled+heated 4qts), 162F (pulled+heated the rest). The rests might have been on the long side though, because the sparging went very slowly. What sort of gravity would you generally be looking for after a week or two of fermentation? I'll go for...