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Could it be the temperature in the room is higher than for the person who wrote the recipe? A higher temperature will increase your hydrometer readings on both the OG and FG I think, right?

Why wash yeast at all? The stuff you get from the store has "nutrients" in it. Isn't that just wort/beer? I have been scooping yeast and whatever's left of the beer from the bottom of primary in an iodophor-washed jar and sealing the lid. I put it in the fridge. That's it. The next time I...

The swing tops are very strong. I bottle conditioned in a Grolsch bottle and over-carbed. It might have been in the bottle six weeks. One night I heard breaking glass and I checked the cabinet... The bottle exploded. I.e. the glass broke before the top failed.

Yes. I have not tried with a screw top but it works fine with the Grolsch-style tops. In fact I think it tastes better because you get more beer pouring out that is not mixed up with yeast at the bottom of the glass.

Hi Folks, Is this Chinook or Cascade? I planted it and tied the plastic bag with sticky label near the plant but the rain washed it away. It\'s covered with what look like they will become cones. I can\'t wait to use it in beer. Heflover

Has anyone tried to make "cheese beer," as in, cheese-flavored beer? I have a friend who is interested in it and refuses to consider the alternatives (like beer-flavored cheese, which has been done; or beer-cheese pairings, which I've had). I'm thinking you could either add a pungent...

I just bottled this after 1 week in primary, 1 week in secondary. I ended up using U.S. Pale 2-row instead of Castle, and D-160 candi syrup instead of d-180. I did BIAB and my efficiency was pretty poor (56 %) probably because I did not squeeze the grain bag. And I boiled about 25 minutes...

Now I realize my biggest mistake: I accidentally hop-bombed my hef. It was only when I was making a new batch last night that I remembered that I accidently dropped my sieve into the primary fermenter when I was pouring in the wort. The hops went straight into the mix. I didn't realize at the...

So after 10 days or so in bottles, I tried one yesterday just to see if it became a bottle bomb. But to get it cold in a hurry I put it in the freezer, and of course, forgot about it. By the time I poured it out, the beer in the neck was slushy and near frozen. I poked a hole through it and...

Yeah I am feeling that the gross taste was yeast. I think the biggest problem was racking to secondary too early. Something about the attenuating yeasts drying out the beer???? When I bottled, the SG was down to 1.010 ... I thought this was odd for a Hef (since what I like is the sweet taste)...

Thanks, I'll use that rule of thumb going forward. I guess I will be awaiting my hef for a while. :( The beers are in a bathroom we don't use... with some under a sink in case they go kaboom.

I bottled some "We Ho Wheat" (Eagle Rock HBS recipe) last night and the sample tasted terrible. It was astringent, like it had dried out. I had kept it in the primary fermenter (the bucket) for 4 days and the secondary (carboy) for 8 days. Everything I have read on these forums suggests this...

Thanks all, indeed I discovered my mistake too (and let my friends know to take the beer I just gave them out of the fridge). So I took 40 or so beers back out of the fridge, and put them away in a box. This should also prevent me from being tempted to open a cold one before it's ready :)

So, I just drank some of my friend's home brew which turned out flat even after a couple weeks of bottle conditioning. I saw this article: http://hbd.org/brewery/library/YPrimerMH.html and came to the conclusion that lower temps produce higher CO2 (look at the second and third tables) in beers...

Sweet! Thanks for the advice. My grain bill would never get that high so I'm definitely going AG to try this, even with my 5 gallon pot. I plan to mash in the brew kettle, sparge in the secondary fermenter/plastic bucket and mix the two. I was also reading some posts about decoction mashing...

Are you racking to a secondary fermenter? I am just getting started on brewing but this seems to keep the beer off the trub to avoid off flavors. I suppose if you still have trub or excessive yeast left in the beer when you keg it, it could agitate again and start doing who knows what.

Can someone check through my all-grain BIAB thinking for a 5-gallon brew kettle? I am thinking of using the BK as a mash tun, and my 6-gallon plastic primary fermenter bucket for sparging. With a 10 lb grain bill, I'm going to need about 1.25 qt/lb of mash water, bringing my brew kettle up...

Great thanks Mystic! I may move up in kettle size at some point but I also wanted to improve my skills a bit first. Is there an advantage flavor-wise to doing a full boil? Are hops or other particles attaching to something in the wort, and will they not be as flavorful if I just add water...

So, I'm wanting to move to AG BIAB but I only have a 5 gallon brew kettle. Most recipes I'm seeing require about 10 lbs of grain. If I am mashing at 1.5 quarts per pound, can't I just use 15 quarts of water (fitting into my kettle nicely with a gallon to spare), heat up the temp to mash-off...