Recent content by dan_rouse

I ended up ramping the recipe up to about 9% alcohol, using a pound of lactose and finishing it on bourbon soaked oak spirals. Absolutely fantastic. It turned a really great milk stout into a really great milk stout based winter warmer!

I had a strange thing happen. I brewed in colder than normal temps. As a result, my mash temp was low. My HERMS wasn't raising the temp fast enough, so I fired the burner under the keggle. I stirred quite a bit to prevent scorching. Twice my flow to my pump from the mash tun got cut off/plugged...

John, I'll jump in. Here's Danstar's info on their saison: Microbiological Properties: • Classified as Saccharomyces cerevisiae • Top-fermenting yeast • Typical analysis of active dry strain: • Solids 93%-95% • Living yeast cells ≥5 x 109 per gram of dry yeast...

I had a bottle (750 ml) that the champaign (plastic) cork got stuck. Couldn't get it out at all. So I threw it in the fridge about three months ago, after it sitting at room temp for about 8 months. I finally got aggressive with the cork. Broke it. Then thought "why didn't I just break it off?"...

Thanks for the responses. I need to digest them! Lots of good info.

I've been brewing for about a year. All grain. Mostly 10 gal batches in keggles with a HERMS. I have well water, which I use straight. I do additives based on tweaking in Brewer's Friend until I match the style. I think my beer is pretty good. And others do as well. But there's a certain...

I had the opposite reaction to Pliny. I get a lot of great IPAs here in Portland. Dime a dozen for really good stuff. So I was expecting to be disappointed with Pliny. Also, NW IPAs tend to have a unique flavor that I really like. And I very rarely like IPAs I try in other parts if the country...

What's the gelatin method? I'd like to try that on my next dry hopped beer. How much, and in what form?

So I'd never had Pliny until last night. And I was worried that it wouldn't live up to the hype. I should also say that I live in Portland, and good IPAs are a dime a dozen. Pliny is unbelievable. There are no flaws. It's perfection in a glass (for the style).

Thanks for jumping back on your thread with the update. Pretty cool to see the progress. What are the two biggest things you can attribute to increasing the quality of your beer? I've been at it for about a year, all grain the whole way, and I'm now to the point of tweaking little things. I'm...

I'll second using the stone. I was recently made aware of this, and tried it on my last batch. I hooked it up at serving pressure in the kegerator (started at room temp in the keg). At first, it made what looks like shaving cream at the top of the beer. But I closed it up and checked it about...

The IPA is done. It's really good, but there's something present than was definitely present in the Red Chair clone I brewed. Everyone that's tried it says it's great. But my wife (non-beer-drinker) tasted it and said it is sweet. It's not. It ended up at 1.010, or so. I was using a...

Nope. But I've made several hoppy pales. Although this has a much simpler grain bill, with less crystal malts. Sorry if this comes twice. Stupid iPhone app froze.

Very helpful. Thanks. It is more of a curiosity to me, than anything else. When I tasted the wort, I assumed that my gravity was going to be really low, because it wasn't all that sweet. Then when I took the reading, it was at 1.075. Maybe I just needed to eat a cracker to cleanse my palate!

The question I have is whether wort from a cooler mash temp tastes less sweet than wort from warmer mash. I made an IPA yesterday, and have been fighting a sweeter finish than I like on some of my pales. So I mashed at 148, instead of my standard 150-154. When tasting the wort, it seemed a...