Recent content by jshell55

Yes actually this happened to me just the other day. I was brewing a stout and a porter at the same time. Similar enough to each other and not finnicky on yeast. I used cheap Nottingham dry yeast in the porter and expensive yeast in the little package where you break the little nutrient sack...

Thanks for the article. What's your opinion on how to keep your session beer from tasting "watery?". The beer I have carbonating at the moment is a simple brew which is very lightly hopped using witbier yeast. This batch is about where it is going to be, but I might try this again and can make...

I've been breweing for about 9 years now. In the beginning I experimented with this as a home Brewer to save a few dollars. You can indeed get some or all of the sluge off of the bottom of the primary and add it to the next batch make pretty good beer for about 3 generations. After that...

Great news! I got a piece of a charred whiskey barrel which was gifted to me by some family members. This is from a famous Kentucky distillery that either gives these things away or sells them. I would love to use this as a flavoring agent for some Porter or stout. What I don't want to do is...

Cool. Well I started mine this morning. Ambient was 70 or so and after about 10 hours in the batch the temperature is 81 and there is a white layer on top of the batch which says to me it's rockin'. I got a cheap heating pad from wally Mart plus I put one of my winter coats over it to keep it...

Hi Trav; Do you do a secondary fermentation on your saison? My typical method for IPA and other less frisky beers is to rack the beer after the batch clarifies. But based on these threads if I do that using the 3742 I will certainly cool the batch and potentially put it to sleep which I do not...

I wanted to make a nice batch of dark lager. I usually do a partial extract using some LME from my local Supply store. They carry bulk LME both light and dark. In this particular case the valve was stuck on the drum of dark liquid extract so they gave me 3 lbs of CBW Special Dark from a kit...

Update: 10 days pass and I declare cider brilliance... The carbonation level is delightful with small champagne bubbles... Pretty good sweetness... Tempted to pasteurize about half of it and leave the other half the way it is to see if that small sugar addition gives me just the right amount...

Update: I opted to dissolve both the sugar and Splenda in water first. For the sugar I used 2 cups dissolved in 2 cups of water for a volume of 27 ounces. One cup of this was added to most of a gallon of cider and it was just about right... For the Splenda I dissolved 2 cups into 2 cups of...

Hear me out on this one: I have a pretty flavorful cider that I am about ready to bottle. The problem is that the flavor is "tangy" because all of the ferment able sugars are now alcohol. I want to re-sweeten half of it with Splenda, and half with sugar. The complicating factor is that there...

Update: Here is what happened: I brewed two more batches, IPA type, that gushered. I brewed two more batches, one stout and one Irish Red Ale, that were delightful. The difference: Dry hopping.. I had a quantity of Australian hops that my daughter sent me, that I kept in the fridge...

Update: I have my recovery batch in the secondary now, and just about ready to bottle it. I have done some research on this. 1. The Gusher Bug: This is likely to be one or both of two types of bacteria, lactobacillus of which the two main types are acidophilus and pediococcus. The names of...

Thanks for posting that. Actually in my limited experience, about 3 years of brewing, I've never seen that and so I will keep a few of these bottles around for a few more days to check up on them. I have several "lots" of beer: I bottled a couple of batches yesterday: a stout that I'd...

I'm experiencing a lot of problems with gushering. I've checked through the threads and still have a couple of questions on this important topic: The problem showed up at some level on everything I've brewed since August, which is about 6 batches. Typically, these batches taste fine and are...

Nah, the intent was just to produce some flavorful amber IPA type using cascade. The vinegar made the batches undrinkable. You're right about the bucket in general, I am pretty sure that in addition to the permeation, there was some leakage around the lid, and also, there may have been some...