Recent content by locusta

Archivist. I'm a natural organizer.

I'm in the Bay Area and hop levels do seem to get associated with "beer cred" a lot here. I'm personally not a big fan of heavily hopped beers because I have an incredibly poor sense of smell (can't smell a road-killed skunk); so beers that rely on their aromas tend to just taste overly bitter...

Amazing prizes. I'm in. :)

So I've tried brewing a couple of the recipes in "Brewing Classic Styles" by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer, but I only have a 5 gallon kettle rather than the (10ish?) one suggested by the book. The first beer we tried to brew came in way, way over OG and the second, which I tried to adjust...

We finally tracked down the Chainbreaker and really enjoyed it. I've been seeing a lot of all-grain clones, but I don't suppose someone has come up with an extract version?

All these sound really interesting. I did manage to find one but it's "with brette" (sp?) so I'm sure it won't be quite what I'm looking for. We bought it anyway to taste. I have tried bevmo and my local Luckys. I'm just unlucky I guess. I'll keep hunting. The American vs Belgian yeast...

I always brew with my husband (he does the heavy lifting), although I tend to be the one who keeps a close eye on things. We've had people join us a few times but I think the waiting time is a bit dull so they don't come back. I can imagine brewing on my own but I imagine bottling solo is tough.

Thanks. Am I going to have to find a craft beer specialty shop? I tried Bevmo today and mostly just confused the staff.

I recently read about white IPAs and I'm really curious to try one before to trying to brew it. Are white Ipas still available commercially? Is there one anyone would recommend? I'm in the SF Bay Area.

Thanks Logan for the alternative method. I unfortunately don't currently have multiple kettles, so it might be some time before I can give it a try. I do have my regular (kitchen) pots, but they have a non-stick coating on them. Is that something I should avoid using?

Brewing a hefeweizen kit this weekend. My husband wants a lighter dinner beer and all we've got right now is graf.

Thanks for the quick response Yooper. We'll give the late extract addition a try this weekend. I guess I was concerned that if I was over-steeping the grains I could get some overly bitter tastes (like steeping tea leaves), so it's good to know that my technique isn't out of left field.

So we're interested in improving our process for brewing on our electric stove and I was wondering if how we handle the steeping grains might be having an effect on the color (tends to be a bit dark) and maybe flavor (tastes good but could be better) of our beer. We have been following the...

The most annoying/worst response I've ever gotten was "But girls don't drink beer". I removed myself from that conversation pretty fast. When people say they don't like beer, I understand. I use to think it was terrible. It took a homebrewer sharing a wheat beer to bring me around.

Hi all. I've been lurking around the forum and it's been so informative I figured I should try and get more involved. I've been homebrewing with my husband for a little under a year (extract only) in our little 2-bedroom apartment. We've had more successes than failures so far, as well as...