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I brewed an Irish red, Smithwicks clone, but i had to sub a decent amount of ingredients out because my LHBS was lacking what i needed. its only been 4 days, but My OG was 1.048 and its down to 1.011 already. the taste is very... well not good, hard to explain. bitter, unpleasently so. Not very...

i use a Johnson temperature controller for a ceramic heat bulb to warm my wort during the winter. i keep the bulb and wort in a freezer thats acts solely as a fermentation chamber (the freezer does not work, so all i have is a heat source in a sealed container basically.) on my current beer...

long story put short, used yeast that wasnt healthy, its been 2 days since i pitched it and it hasnt done a thing (it was close to expiration) was gonna pitch another one tonight, but the shop didnt have anymore of that yeast and the only substitute they had was expired as well. i'll have to get...

bought a big chest freezer and a johnson temperature controller, but of course now its getting cold out and my garage isnt warm enough to keep the interior of the freezer above 57 degrees. the johnson controller has a setting, which i already switched, for heating instead of cooling. but im...

i rarely do extract batches, but since my friend wanted me to teach him how to brew, i though an extract would be easiest to teach. and of course the brew he wanted to do was Midas Touch. the recipe I got showed an OG of 1.086. but after we were done on brew day our OG was 1.070 ish. Just...

brewing a pumpkin ale today. i have nutmeg, cinnamon, alspice, and vanilla bean. all the spices are in thier whole form, not ground (figured i would want to take them out at some point and ground spices would just "dissolve" into the beer) anyway all i can do is crush them as fine as i can with...

brewed a pale ale 3 times with nottingham yeast. (OG 1.052, FG 1.010) the first time i forced myself to not touch anything after I started fermenting becuase honestly i wanted to see how many corners i could cut and still get good beer. Im almost certain the temp got above 72 degrees in primary...

So i always like to cold crash my ales while in Secondary. Not too cold, prolly around 55. my last batch came out incredibly clear, but its didn't carbonate very well. 5 ounces corn sugar as always, but im assuming the clearer the beer is, the less yeast remains in the bottles and doesn't...

Hi there, So im sick of having unstable fermentation temperatures, so i wanna get a mini fridge to use as a fermentation chamber. i need it to fit my 6.5 gallon carboy. its roughly 26 inches tall with the blow off tube attached and around 10 inches wide. I know plenty of people use mini...

i used an aeration stone with a pure oxygen bottle last night. my gravity was 1.062 and the instructions said to aerate it with the stone for 2 minutes. it didnt say how much im supposed to open the valve though. i opened it full blast and of course it went crazy and foamed out of the carboy in...

im starting to get a little more creative with special ingredients/spices and such to my beers. But i havent really figured out what the effects the ingredients will have if i put them in at different times. My main decision tends to be whether to add spices at the beginning of the boil, at...

I was thinking of doing a coffee stout/porter. for this, it seems i can do 1 of 2 things, either put in some amount of ground coffee into the last few mins of the boil or at FO, or i add a coffee toddy to secondary. i know a brewer from my place of work and he says adding ground coffee to...

i think im trying to choose the leser of two evils here. iv'e got a brew going right now, first one ive brewed in my new house. but i cant find that perfect spot for my carboy that keeps a constant and correct temperature. i used 1007 german ale yeast that has a temp range that peaks at 68...

I plan on brewing a marzen style ale with pumpkin, nutmeg, and orange. I used tasty brew to form a recipe, however this is my FIRST attempt at trying to build a recipe. so for all i know you may look at this and say "what the F*** is wrong with you?" regardless, i would love any feedback and...

i'd like to try a pumpkin ale for october and i am a fan of using whole, fresh ingredients. So i'd like to brew with an actual pumpkin and not canned pumpkin or pumpkin spice. however i dont know what part of the pumpkin to use or how to prepare it? any thoughts?

I helped my friend brew his first ale the other day and we used US-05 dry yeast as specified on the recipe. iv'e personally never used dry yeast before, just Wyeast and white labs. He told me it was doing pretty well after day one in a blow off tube, but this morning it has already slowed down...

i plan on brewing an IPA that should have a OG of 1.070, should i boil for 60 mins or 90 mins? I've red a few articles about increased boil times, however they seem to all be related to brewing lagers. Even though im just looking for an answer to my original question, if anyone has info on...

im curious if Wheat beers generally require more priming sugar than other beers. i bottled a Weissestaphen Kristall Weissbier clone with 3/4 cup corn sugar in a pint of water like i normally do but it barely retains a head. i brewed two Belgian wits before that were primarily wheat as well and...

I normally soak my bottles in oxy clean over night and as far as i know its just to get the labels off. then i run the bottles through a dish wash cycle using Star San. After that im ready to go, but this time around i am re-using 70% of my bottles from last time, so they still have no labels...

So here's a slightly different question. Who knows how to make a drinking horn NOT smell like wet dog? I bought some buffalo horns from some place in Sedona for the purpose of drinking out of. of course i wasnt aware that when the inside gets wet, it smells worse than a soaked dog. i read...