Recent content by richanne

for what its worth, my guess is that the 1056 yeast attenuated too much for a scotch ale - i brew malty styles all the time, but i don't use el chico - next time try a yeast with lower attenuation and you will probably have an award winner. good luck - and i hope this helps.

That would be a typical upgrade price for liquid yeast, maybe a dollar less than that. Sounds like you got a good deal that day. We won't be participating in this forum anymore. Best of luck to you. Advise you check out www.howtobrew.com for lots of good free information on homebrewing...

Gee. Same maltiness, similar fruitiness, same color range = "zero similarity"? Actually, the original question was about what was referred to as a "Double Bock." I did make a typo in the name of our dopplebock, which we call Dubble Bock. That's just our name for our own recipe. You are...

Desert, Is that the Brew Your Own store in Tucson? Do his kits come with bottle caps and priming sugar, a la Brewer's Best? Same price as BB, but with liquid yeast? If so, that's quite a bargain. FYI, Brewer's Best kits generally contain unhopped malt extract and pellet hops, but some...

It's not adequate. You need to sanitize the secondary.

OK, found a PDF version of the 2004 BJCP guidelines for beer styles. Here is what they say. I'm comparing category 5C Doppelbock with 19B English Barleywine: On maltiness: DB: very stong maltiness BW: Very rich and strongly malty On fruitiness: DB: Moderately low fruity aspect to aroma...

The BJCP site appears to be down right now, but Bocks don't have to be black (even hear of a Blonde Bock?). I could see where what your homebrew supply shop guy is saying could happen. He even could have noticed that the alcohol percentage was in the barleywine category and decided to switch out...

Yes, DME would be better than Booster. By the by, Mr. Beer is now selling WYeast slap packs for $5.99!!

Booster is not only corn sugar. It's a mixture of corn sugar and malto-dextrin. The Mr. Beer basic kit comes with a can of hopped extract to make West Coast Pale Ale and a package of the booster. Yes, the basic recipe calls for mixing the Booster with water, bringing it to a boil, removing from...

Can't imagine either why you'd want to do this, but Brewer's Best has an extract-with-specialty-grain kit for American Light beer that's probably about as close as you're gonna get.

Yes, they tell you to stir it. They also come with a one-step oxygen sanitizer and advise sanitizing everything that touches the wort.

We have a Britta Water filter that fits over the faucet and we use that water to brew. We do add to it, depending on the brew style. Spring water from WalMart sounds good.

Sloshing questions aside, what does the Beer look like at the top? (Mr. Beer is transparent.) When the beer is fermenting, you should see something that looks sort of like foam on the top. This is more important than what you're seeing at the bottom. Janx, Mr. beer kits come with a packet of dry...

Good point at the end there -- yes, there were certainly brewers before there were hydrometers. I looked back over this thread, and I don't see where I ever asserted that brewing without a hydrometer was "dangerous." We've actually done it our ourselves on certain brews. It could be dangerous...

You should not use distilled water for beer because all of the chemicals have been stripped out. It's best to use spring water, if you can afford it. Or you can use R/O water and add some chemicals to it. What is the tap water like where you live? Rule is generally if the water tastes good, use...