Recent content by landmissle

I am boiling on the stove-top, but perhaps I chose my verb badly. I actually have a spigot on the kettle and 'drain' the wort into the carboy via a hose. I use the hop socks because it seems like it reduces the amount of loose material at the bottom of the kettle.

Hi all, I've have around seven (7) brew sessions under my belt doing full-boil extract based recipes. When I add my hops, I put them in a hop sock and let them steep the stated time (viz. 60 minutes, 30 minutes, etc..). When the boil time is complete ( usually 60 minutes), I remove the hop...

I've only brewed six batches of beers so far and More Beers! Irish Red extract with Nottingham yeast has been my favorite. I've liked all the beers I've brewed, but this was the best. It gets better too as it ages.

Hey guys! Thanks for the feedback so far. I just left a message on their web-site asking if they would release the recipe to me. Can't hurt to ask.....

While on vacation up in Oregon, I had a (several...) Pelican Sea n' Red ale. My wife and I really enjoyed it. I'm thinking about trying to reproduce it. I haven't yet contacted the brewer to see if they would release the details, but I was wondering if there's some 'rules of thumb' to follow...

How are you taking your measurement and with what instrument? A hydrometer? Can you post a picture of the reading? As others have said, it's likely the instrument is off or you are misreading the instrument.

Hi all, Thanks for the feedback. I'm happy enough with the kettle. Just wanted to be sure that I was not putting myself in a situation where my beer was getting leeched with undesireable metals or chemicals.

Hi all, I've only been brewing for about 6 months and am on my fifth batch of beer (in the fermentor now). I'm learning a lot and so I'm probably asking a lot of stupid/newebie questions. Here's my next one. The kettle I'm using is a 8.5 gallon unit that came in a starter kit. It's made of 201...

Hi all, Thank you for all the advice. Brewed the batch today and added .45 lbs (7 oz) of sugar after adding the LME. Cook went fine and hit a final gravity of 1.051. Used Nothingham yeast for the first time so it'll be interesting to see how this all works out.

I'm recreating this recipe of MoreBeer's Irish Red Ale. The LHBS sourced the ingredients for me, but only provided 6.6 lbs of LME instead of the listed 7lbs. Not sure why, perhaps a misread? I should have double checked before leaving the store. That said, this is a learning moment right?

Hi all, I have a recipe that calls for 7 lbs of ultra light LME. I purchased all my ingredients from a local home brew store but failed to double check the amount of LME they provided me. When I got home I discovered I was only given two (2) containers of 3.3 lbs of LME. So I have a total of...

Representing the finer citizenry of Modesto. Brewing my fourth batch for the sake of the Red Ale fans. While it's good to see the growth of craft beer over the years, I'm pretty tired of IPA this and that with a hazy twist to shake things up. Hence, I'll brew my own red ale; thank you very much....

So US-05 would be a good one to use? That would be nice as I've had very good results using it in some other batches.

I think the fact that it was 8lbs LME might change those calculations. I'm still learning (alot...), but I think lbs.-for-lbs. LME < DME. I'm not sure of the units to use, but believe DME is only 2% water (therefor 98% "extract") and LME is 20% water (and therefor 80% "extract"). So, in this...

Hi all, I'm going to take another shot at brewing a St Stan's Red Sky Ale clone recipe. I used Safale S-33 and had some trouble not reaching the stated OG of 1.057 ( I hit 1.051) and the FG of 1.013 ( I reached 1.018). The beer actually came out pretty good and taste very similar to the...