Recent content by Nick Z

I mash in a cooler. And no, I can't hold a consistent mash temperature for more than ten minutes because it is such a small mass. Normally my beers over attenuate. Sometimes by quite a bit. But in this case my cooler couldn't hold all the grains and liquid. So I mashed on the stove with a...

If memory serves the mash temp was 154F. I did use nutrients (Wyeast Beer) and aerated the wort. Several times. That's why I'm surprised it seems to have stalled out. I did throw in some Nottingham. It looks like it's gathering its strength. A bit of foam is building on the surface of...

I just racked it a gallon glass jug and took a gravity reading. Its 1.050. That's only 7.9% ABV That seems too high. I see no bubbles or any other signs of fermentation continuing. I'm guessing it's stuck. I'm considering inoculating it with Nottingham to try and drive it lower. Thoughts...

It's slowed down quite a bit. Sooner than I am comfortable with. I moved it from a location that is in the 60s F to an area in the low 70s F. I've roused it and given it nutrients again. But I'm getting increasingly worried about contamination and I think I'm going to stop opening the...

I've been doing direct pitching for a while and haven't noticed any issues. That being said I am usually doing a 2X to 3X over pitch. When I've rehydrated with GoFerm the airlock sometimes starts bubbling earlier. For this one I did a direct pitch of an entire packet of US-05 for a one gallon...

As long as it doesn't get stuck too high, I'll live with it. I opened the bucket and gave the wort a stir and threw in some yeast nutrient today. Hopefully that helps out the yeast.

Good tip. I always use corn sugar for priming sugar so I'm covered there.

Yeah, I screwed up here. My mash efficiency was thirty percent lower than it should have been. And I had extra wort so I boiled a bit longer. Well, I did it too long, which was dumb.

Do I sprinkle a little in each bottle or just toss some in the bottling bucket? I do have CBC-1. I got in case I ever needed it and now seems to be the time. I'll go with that. Lallemand says it is a killer strain anyway.

k1-v1116 yeast is what I leaning towards using for the bottle conditioning. It's killer yeast so it should pretty much take over. Should I add that yeast in the bottling bucket or a few days beforehand? I don't want bottle bombs. I've already had that.

A diastatic yeast was exactly what I wanted to avoid. Are wine yeasts diastatic? I know that sounds like a dumb question but I have no experience with using a wine yeast in beer.

Done. The new OG is 1.104. If it ferments to 1.30, as the recipe says it should, that is within the alcohol tolerance of the yeast (9.71% ABV) Even if it finishes at 1.020 it might get over the finish line for 11.03%. Beersmith thinks it will get down to 1.010. That might break the yeast...

About an hour ago. I was considering watering it down. I have distilled and RO water I could just dump in.

I just brewed a Russian imperial stout and I screwed up. I boiled off too much and ended up with an OG of 1.124. As per the recipe (Czar's Revenge) I pitched US-05 yeast. But that yeast won't be able to ferment it all the way. It's alcohol tolerance is around 9-11%. It won't be able to...

1.060. Same as the original gravity. I just threw in some pasteurized juice in the hopes of diluting whatever is in there that the yeast hate.