Search results

Hey guys! I used to brew a lot, but hit a dry spell between 2013 and June of this year. I am generally an AG brewer, but I decided to do an extract batch for my first brew in three years because I didn't trust myself to remember how my process worked. Brew day went OK. I brewed BYO...

I brewed the Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale 2013 recipe from elsewhere on these forums. Brew day went OK (other than a toe sprain which occurred for reasons too ****ing stupid to recount) but at the end of the day, I got a hair under 4 gallons into my fermenter... from a 5.5 gallon batch. The...

Yesterday I kegged a very small Ordinary Bitter (OG 1037) brewed with S-04. I'm planning to brew an English barleywine about two weeks from now. I know it's "almost never" correct pitch rate to rack onto an existing cake, but according to the brewersfriend pitch rate calculator, my low gravity...

I was reading this article on Beersmith.com about the use of caramel malts. I encountered this strange warning: I've mixed caramels before and thought it worked OK. A search of the forums indicates I'm not alone in this... and I can't find anything that explains why mixing "a rainbow of...

I am setting up some wall-through beer shanks and opted for gigantic euro-style tap handles like these. The handles are big enough that they touch the wall, which doesn't feel ideal (it sucks not to be able to wrap your hand around the handle when drawing a pint) and I'm not sure the handle...

I now have four kegs to go with four taps, and plan to have them all filled within the next three weeks. I felt all satisfied with myself... until I realized I'd need to keep my new draught lines clean. Did a little googling and found a do-jigger for $48 that amounts to a tank with a ball...

I brewed a dry Irish stout two Sundays ago, and checked the gravity last night, whereupon I determined that I had hit my target gravity. Being a homebrewer, I poured the sample into a taster glass and gave it the ol' sniff-and-sip. Yeast I used was Mangrove Jack M07, their British ale strain...

I have a new kit that I've brewed on three times. Yesterday I brewed a recipe that I had Beersmithed at 65% mash efficiency... only to find I hit 94.9% mash efficiency. I'm trying to figure out where to go next. My gear consists of: Fermenter's Favorites 7 gallon mash tun with Titan false...

Brewed a stout today and everything went according to plan. Pitched yeast from a starter that went vigorously last night and dropped out of suspension hard this morning. Fridges the starter until a couple hours before pitch, and the moment before pitch I poured off the liquid. That was about...

Close to three years ago I ordered a Better Bottle. I did a single batch in it, which came out awesome... just as I was preparing to move house. Having packed my sanitation equipment, I did the next best thing: splashed some water in to keep it from crusting, stuck the bung on, wrapped Saran...

I'm looking at this frigging thing and trying to understand. It looks like a K-cup machine for beer. You just pop in a pre-sealed carton with grains and hops and... get a keg of inoculated wort? I don't get it. I don't mean to be fightey about this, I just legitimately don't understand. Who is...

I'm working on a basement bar build and need to run some shanks through a brick wall with an air gap. It's a hair under 11 inches, all told - seriously! I can find chrome plated brass shanks no problem, but I've read horror stories about the chrome flaking off. I can find stainless steel...

(Note: This is long. TLDR at the bottom.) Labor Day Weekend is a pretty big deal for most of us homebrewers. A three day weekend is great because it lets us have a day to relax, a day to meet social social obligations (read: keep SWMBO happy), and a day to - what else? - brew some beer! This...

Hey, gang. Dumb question here: I have some Maris Otter, is it possible to heat it in my oven and convert it to Crystal? (ideally 120, as that's what I need for my recipe?) Boring story short, I flubbed my order for grain, and as a result I won't get my crystal malt until Monday. Related fact...

I've been eyeing this recipe up recently: http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2011/09/lets-brew-wednesday-1868-younger-no-3.html Looks tasty, but when I plugged the hop schedule into Beersmith I got 1.076 OG and 94.1 IBUs! Now, I love me some barleywine, but I can't say I've seen anything...

Hey, crew - got a bit of a puzzler. I'm looking at a house in Claremont, NH and am faced with abandoning my current, decent (and non-Chloramine) city water in favor of the unknown. I haven't been able to find any data on the city water there - by any chance, do any of you live there and have...

I bought a kegging kid from a vendor who will remain nameless - they may yet make some of these issues right. My gas line doesn't have crimps (dunno the technical name) and even with keg lube, the end that connects to the gas disconnect leaks CO2 when under pressure. As a result, I...

I was checking on a saison I bottled last week and I heard a hissing. One of the bottles had a thick krausen inside, and the cap wasn't on straight. For the hell of it, I cracked it open. The foam was immediate, a thick, pillowy jet of suds spraying floorward from under the cap before I...

I was going to go with the vodka extraction method but the dude at the beverage warehouse sold me on using grain alcohol instead. The closer I get to bottling day though the more unsure I am, so: has anyone used grain alcohol to extract coffee for a breakfast stout? How did it work out? Any regrets?

Howdy, peeps. I'm not new here, but I have been reidentified. Formerly, I was Kerin... now that I've outgrown going by my WoW character's name, der freundlische Administrator has seen fit to give me a new handle. Nice to re-meet you all. Prost! :mug: