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The instructions for carboy heat belts suggests that glass carboys can explode when used with glass carboys. I'm wondering if anyone has actually had a glass carboy shatter when using a heating belt. I've wrapped my carboy with a towel, and wrapped the heater around the towel. I hope this is...

My German friend tried my 2 month old Apfelwein yesterday. He said it tasted just like something he would buy in Germany. I would consider that a complete success! Thanks EdWort!

Considering the pressure in a regular beer bottle caused by the carbonation, I presume beer back in the day wasn't carbonated? I doubt a barrel could hold enough pressure to keep the beer carbonated.

Just tried this out last night. I put 6 1L plastic bottles 3/4 filled with water in the freezer. When boil was done, I filled the sink with water and put the bottles in there. Changed the water 3 times during the half hour cool down. It worked very well. Next time, I'm considering...

I presume that beer was originally made from just malted grain, without the addition of hops. I'm wondering if there are any styles remaining that don't use any hops?

Getting time to bottle my pale wheat, so I opened up the carboy to peek inside. It smells horrible in there! Not sure how to describe it except strong and wrong (or "off"). I've never used wheat malt before: does wheat beer usually smell different than other styles? 2# Wheat malt 2# Pale...

Just bottled and tasted our first all-grain batch yesterday: we made beer! However, we both found it too bitter and hoppy for our tastes. It's definitely not bad, but it's got a hop punch that we weren't expecting. For our next batch, we'd like a sweeter (maltier?) light beer (light as in...

Can any of these "baddies" I've heard so much about cause homebrew to be toxic to humans? My understanding is that they just make it taste terrible, but I'm wondering if there is a chance of toxins making it into my homebrew. I know that improperly made moonshine can cause blindness or worse...

I've read that you don't have to boil LME, and that boiling the LME has a risk of scorching. Wouldn't the LME cause a hot break when boiled? Otherwise, it is just boiling water. It's been a while since I've used just LME, but I have boiled some LME batches.

Since I'm such a micro-manager, I check on all my brews at least twice a day (morning and night), and sometimes just stand there watching the airlock or some whirling fermentation. With a bucket, I need to open up the lid to see inside, which shakes up the liquid a bit and exposes it to the...

On the beer side of this site, there is fair amount on controversy over a long primary (3-6 weeks) vs a shorter primary (5-10 days) and a secondary. Lots of recipes for wine say to leave it in a secondary for a year, and then bottle. Why does wine require so much longer to condition than...

Just bottled my first EdWort Apfelwein. I Capped half for carbonation, and wine bottled the other half. When I was done, I checked the hydrometer reading. 1001 fg. Whoops? That seems a few points high for wine. What does a bottle bomb look like in a corked wine bottle? Hopefully just the cork...

I've read hundreds of posts on here that "bubbling is not an indicator of fermentation". I presume this means bubbling in the airlock. I've brewed a few batches in a glass carboy, so got to watch the wort actually bubble (serious carbonation, then a slow drop off). Can I assume this is a better...

Out of curiosity, I closed all vents in my brew room and got it down to 60. The on-going fermentations all continued bubbling away, and two new batches haven't had any issues yet. Except for the possibility of stuck fermentations, are there other effects of fermenting at lower temperatures?

My LHBS is hit or miss for grains, so I tend to get whatever they have when I'm there. This time I got 10lbs pale malt, 2 lbs wheat malt, 2 lbs munich, and just under 2 lbs of something they called crystal 150. I've only done one all grain batch, so I'm hoping the community can help me out...

Gearing up to try my first AG. I'm trying to make due with the equipment that I currently have: a 23 quart pot and a 16 quart pot (5.75 gallons and 4 gallons). With room for the grain and hot break (I've previously tried a partial mash to test the set up), I get around 4.5 gallons of wort from...

A local german told me it was pronounced abel-vine. Not my guess, given my English background.

Made a batch of this yesterday. I used 60 Walmart tea bags. I added 5 tsp yeast nutrient and used 8 cups of table sugar. Since I'm not a huge tea fan, I wanted more of the citrus flavour so added 1 lemon and 1 orange to the steep, then 1 lemon and 1 orange (cut into small pieces) into the...

I had a brown nut ale in a carboy for 3 weeks, and I could still see lots of bubbles forming at the top. It really looked like it was carbonated: Brown Nut Ale Carboy Carbonated.m4v I decided to give it a little spin, and got these sweet stringy lines of yeast: Stringy Lines Of...

My buddy just recently became excited about trying homebrew. My 6.5 gallon carboy has a brown nut ale in it, so we went to buy him his own today. The local store only had 5 gallon carboys, so he bought a bucket with a cover instead (we now have a red ale in the bucket). The cover does not...