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I know there are a lot of people on this board that live and brew in the EBMUD water district. I'm sure you've all heard the news about how they're changing the tap water source and how the taste will be affected. What do you plan to do to treat your brewing water?

Hi all… I just got my propane tank refilled and I think they overfilled it a bit. I'm having a problem keeping my Blichmann burner going. The regulator gets frosty and after a few minutes the pressure goes down and then out. I switched out the tank with the one that was on my BBQ and that...

I hate it when I forget steps, and aerating wort is one of those things I've forgotten more than once. Never again!

I have a beer that finished higher than I expected, at about 1.02 instead of 1.012. It was in primary for 3 weeks at 64 degrees (WLP001), and has been sitting on dry hops for the last week. Unfortunately, I didn't pull a gravity sample until I was already racking to the secondary. I'm...

I just bought two 6-gallon buckets so I could move up to five-gallon batches. I was previously fermenting in 5-gallon carboys, and two carboys fit easily in my chest freezer. The actual dimensions of my new buckets are a little bigger than the manufacturer specs, with the result that they...

I'm making two different starters for two different batches that I'm brewing Friday. The LHBS had a sale a while back so I picked up a few different varieties of yeast. I just now realized that I smacked the pack of yeast that I didn't want to activate now. Would it be better to keep it...

Did anyone grow willamettes who would care to comment on their level of aroma? I'm just starting to bag mine up and I'm surprised that they don't have very much smell. I harvested and dried the centennials last week, and those were so much more potent. I definitely didn't harvest too...

I brewed a pale ale on 3/25 and dry hopped it a week later. I used S-05 yeast. At the time I put in the hops (pellets dropped straight into primary) the beer was mostly clear with just a touch of residual krauesen floating on top. When I looked at the carboy again yesterday I noticed the beer...

Another thread in the Beginner's forum about a blowoff tube made me remember a dream I had the other night. I had just brewed a saison and ended up with a bit more volume than I expected, especially after adding the liter of yeast starter. To prevent any possible mess, I put in a blowoff tube...

Does anyone know how much pressure a standard crown cap can take when capped onto a heavy Belgian glass bottle? I'll be bottling a saison in the near future and I'd like to give it over 3 volumes.

Today was the first time I used a Wyeast smack pack. When it came time to pitch I was surprised how little liquid was actually inside. I feel like it was less volume than a White Labs vial, and a thinner slurry too. Has anyone else been surprised by this?

There are so many threads on this forum about how racking to secondary has largely become obsolete, with the exceptions of bulk aging (makes sense) and using dry hops or fruit. I've even read of people dry hopping in primary, just dumping the hops on in. Other than making a mess of the yeast for...

I have the chrome red-handled Italian wing capper that I'm sure a lot of people have. When I first started stockpiling bottles I drank a lot of Racer 5 because the labels came off so easily, and of course because I like the beer! It turned out that my capper would stick onto these bottles when...

Yesterday I brewed a gruit using only sweet gale. Following what I'd seen online in a few places, I started with 4 grams at 60 minutes for a 3.5 gallon batch. Midway through the boil I couldn't taste any evidence of the herb in my wort, so at 20 minutes I added another 10 grams. I tasted my...

I just picked my first year Cascades and am planning to wet-hop the beer that is mashing as I type this. Thing is, as I was picking through the hops I found a couple little gray spiders, several ants, and a small ladybug, and I doubt I even found everyone who's hiding in there. I'm planning...

I just took the lid off my Rubbermaid mash tun and it smells. It always keeps a bit of a grain smell from batch to batch, but now that smell has turned a bit sour. Every time I use it I clean it out immediately afterward. I hose it down (with cold water) and use the soft side of a sponge to...

My first two ales with WLP001 were BierMuncher's Centennial Blonde (a slightly stronger version), and a Yerba Mate ale. They are both awesome (to my taste anyway), and the one thing they have in common is an insanely delicious honey floral aroma that I can only imagine came from the yeast. Is...

This question has popped up in my mind the last two bottling sessions, probably because of the placement of the windows in my kitchen. How much light does it take to skunk a beer? Can 5-10 minutes of direct light exposure do damage? Also, does darker beer have more resistance to skunking, just...

Is there any reason why I shouldn't give clean bottles a few shakes with StarSan, then immediately cover with aluminum foil and store upside down in a crate in my garage until I'm ready to bottle? Will the StarSan eat the foil?

I just went to Home Depot to check out their prices on copper coils for the IC I want to make. They had a 20' length of 3/8 OD for $25, and then they had a 50' length of 1/4 OD on sale for $31, marked down from $42. I'm trying to decide which one to use. Also, if I go for the narrower and...