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So I had an old one of those 12VDC Coleman PowerChill Thermoelectric portable coolers - you know, for picnics and such - but it was too small to fit my 5 gallon fermenting bucket in... so I bought a big styrofoam shipping box - and took the styrofoam insert out of it, pulled the thermoelectric...

First, what pressure should I store under after obtaining carbonation in a cold (44F) keg? I'm guessing it should be ~30PSI, and then when ready to serve, use the relief valve to drop the pressure, and back-add just a few PSI for serving. I seemed to get a lot of foam while tapping as serving...

I just bought a couple of cheap 3 gallon kegs for force-carbonization (they will fit in my fridge). On the top of the keg it says, "DO NOT EXCEED 60 PSI" - which makes perfect sense, but it also says, "DO NOT REMOVE LID" - which does not - maybe they mean "don't remove lid while under...

A newbie question: I don't want to bottle carbonate - is there any way to do a kegregator carbonation then transfer it to a bottle, then quick install a cap? I don't think so - too much head in the bottle. But, I'm a newbie and wanted to know what the experienced folks had to say about it...

I got a batch of flat beer :( - it was a big beer so may have been too steeply alcoholic and the yeasties died - is it possible to carbonate by dumping bottles into a Cornelius keg and using CO2 cartridges? I didn't want to spend $hundreds$ on a CO2 bottle setup just to save this batch...

OK, on my first try, I put some sugar water next to my hummingbird feeder (but inside the house - the feeder is next to the window). I came home today and there is krausen! Sniff, sniff, and it smells sort of like a fresh toasted bagel. Did I hit the jackpot first-time?! I don't think...

OK, so you pitch yeast into a 1 quart bottle and it's a 'starter' but you pitch into the primary and it's not. The only difference I can see is maybe lower specific gravity in the starter bottle? Thanks, Patricia

So it looks like galactose and glucose are at least 10x as soluble in water as lactose - so I added some lactase tablets to a water + lactose mixture to see if it got more soluble. It does. This means you can use solubility as an unambiguous test of how well the lactase has done its job...

I'm starting the boil on an Austin Homebrew Belgian Schelde - I am *so* tempted to mess with the formula. I have some really nice cherry extract I am thinking of adding, or maybe honey or raw sugar (to boost). Has anyone ever brewed the Schelde (with the Wyeast Schelde)? I'm thinking maybe...

I'm playing with "big beers" and White Labs WLP099 suggests oxygenating the ferment several times during the first 5 days, whereas others say (with authority) to ONLY oxygenate at the beginning of ferment...

I brewed an AHS kit (my 4th) of chocolate raspberry stout. The airlock bubbled along happily for 3 - 4 days then stopped. It was their standard kit options (I think it's called extract/partial boil) but I added extra boiled cocoa to the cooling wort (stir well). I had pitched White Labs...

I've been more or less just following the instructions (times, temperatures, etc.), first with Mr. Beer and now with Austin Homebrew Supply kits. This last batch I tried was the chocolate raspberry stout. Excellent. I love the smell of the ingredients and the aroma coming out of the...

A lot of folks seem to use pressurization systems to carbonate (kegging?) rather than relying on bottle carbonation. OTOH, everyone talks about 'bottle conditioning' as being essential (usually, weeks and weeks of it!). So this is a conundrum. How can you get all that conditioning if you go...

I've got a couple of cans of Mr. Beer hopped malt extract but have since moved on to AHS 5 gallon kits. Can hopped malt extract be used for a starter? (I don't know beer chemistry enough to know if the hops mess a starter up) THANKS!! Patty

So I just bottled some AHS Irish Red Ale that I fermented with a vial of WLP007 (final SG= 1.014). After draining my bucket into the bottles, I grabbed a bunch of the mud into a sanitized bottle. Can someone point me to a simple method to reuse this? I used pellet hops in a hop bag during the...

This is my second AHS kit batch of beer and my first one with a glass carbouy for a secondary. It's been over two weeks and fermentation has slowed to almost nothing, except since it's in glass, I can see there are tiny bubbles still rising constantly. Will this stop after, say, 3 weeks? I...