Recent content by emarsh

Love this thread! I'm moving from extract to a zazap in a 5 gallon bucket for now, but I can't boil 5+gallons on my electric stovetop. I'm shooting for a 3 gallon batch. I'll use the oven technique for mash and the zazap (bucket with holes inside bottling bucket) for LT. My question may be a...

So, I brewed the Weizenbock kit I talked about, but I didn't add hops, so it's just wheat malt extract, basically. Got it down to 110, then pitched a vial of l. brevis. 72 hours later, no change in pH. My guess: -I didn't do anything to get the pH lower before pitching, so it was around 6...

Interesting. I don't believe my water is too hard. I'll do some research on that. I'm just going to go ahead and brew and see what happens.

I still haven't brewed this because I had to get pH strips, but now I have another newb question. I do partial boil, like 3 gallons. If this goes down to the mid 3s in pH, and then I add water, will that br8ng the pH back up?

I'm also about to do my first sour. The guys at my LHBS had never heard of kettle souring, so I feel a little on my own. I bought WLP672, the lacto brevis, because the internet said it was fast. I do extract brewing, so I bought the Brewer's Best Weizenbier because it had the lowest IBU of all...

I just opened one of these that I brewed in March 2013, so it's been sitting in the bottle for a little over a year. WOW! Age works some wonders on this already delicious beer. Save it if you can.

Just opened another bottle of this. Still very sweet and flavorful, if a bit bitter. It has a fairly thin mouthfeel. Any idea how to make it thicker next time?

I brewed this in early March, pitched two packets of S-05 with OG 1.098. I had some temperature fluctuations on day 1, where it was a really warm March day in Michigan, and my apartment was 80 or so, and then got really cold (like low 50s) in the room I put the fermenter in. It took off quickly...

Good point. The good news is I also ordered a yeast-starter kit at the same time I ordered the beer kit, so I'll just do that.

I ordered a kit (Pliny the Elder clone) and some yeast (Wyeast 1056), and when it arrived 5 days later, the yeast smack pack was bulging. Apparently the nutrient pack had already broken some time during shipping, maybe yesterday, maybe 5 days ago. I don't intend to brew for a few more days...

I used two packets of S-05 and it worked fine. Started quick and went crazy for days.

Ok. I was going to move it to secondary, but after doing some extensive searching on this forum, it seems that general consensus is longer primary times anyway, and more so for this because it's so high gravity. That is what I'll do, then.

Do you mean in the primary? What is the benefit of letting it sit on the yeast so long?

Just started this. A little boilover at the beginning, but otherwise good. It smells and looks delicious. OG 1.098.