Recent content by krebs119

Oh right on, and I'm not jaded at all. I just approach competitions differently now than I used to. When I enter for the sole purpose of taking home hardware or bragging rights my entries are in this order in order to stand out: 1. REALLY exceptionally done beer, regardless of style. 2...

Sure, and we'll never fully have this multi-nationwide, quarter century long, data. The counter your numbers game though - I wonder how many more obscure styles win BOS vs IPA or Irish Stout? In my experience, GOOD OBSCURE will beat GOOD IPA/Irish Stout more than not.

I think about this a lot. I have a Czech Amber Lager that I brew from time to time that has scored well locally, far away, and even at NHC. I really like it. Thing is, I've never had a commercial example of this style and at least locally, I have yet to find any in stores. So I have to...

Yeah, using "never" was a poor choice, and I didn't bring any actual data. I'm sure I could pull up an equal or greater number of Imperial Stouts and Belgian Tripels that beat English Standard Bitters in competitions, but I unfortunately do not have the time or honestly energy. Regardless, any...

Sure, no doubt. I appreciate the feedback on my beers as well, but I feel like if I got a minimum feedback score and all of the feedback was "this tastes infected, make sure you clean better" I would feel like you hit me with kid gloves with the "19" or whatever score. What good is "this...

Regarding the minimum score portion.... If you have a competition with, say, 400 entries. I would wager that 350-375 of those entries would score between 20 and 40. Of the handful that *would have* scored less than 20, but were given a minimum score of 20 or 18 or 15 or whatever other...

Neither English Mild or Mead were on my list there. I've seen those score high as well.

A lot of what was mentioned above are my reasons for not loving competitions. That said, I've been in quite a few through the years including NHC, I've medaled in quite a few, and I've gotten really poor scores and feedback in quite a few. I've stewarded a handful, and have mostly positive...

Looking a bit deeper at this - with an OG of 1.102 and shooting for the better number of 1.026, you're at a 9.98% (73% attenuation) abv beer. US-05 can handle up to 11% per Fermentis's site and attenuates 77-82%. Mangrove doesn't specify how high it can go, but mentions "all strengths" so I...

Yeah, if you are kegging and hit your FG, or come close enough to it, I wouldn't bother with that yeast. I can't see it helping any in an RIS. If you're shooting for 1.026 and hit 1.030, and add that yeast, it might actually bring it down lower than you want which would dry it out more (like...

I've typically used champagne/wine yeasts in *BIG* beers (like a RIS/Imperial Stout/Eisbock etc) when bottling. I've found that some of the "regular" yeasts like US05 just don't have enough left in them to properly carbonate big beers in bottles, but the champagne yeast will. I know some of...

Sorry for the delay in this... I ended up freezing it in the carboy, in my kegerator. We had a mild winter last year, so I didn't get another long frozen weekend and wanted to get the beer out. It froze a bit TOO much... I ended up having to thaw for a while to get the good stuff out. I...

I recently made a Maibock with this yeast. First time using it. It fermented out, clean, in about a week. The beer is delicious and malty. If I recall correctly, I fermented warm too - like 80s and 90s. Very pleasantly surprised! I saved a jar of it.... likely going into an Imperial...

Derp, yes. for some reason I had this backwards. I am aware, just apparently not enough coffee.

So I should have specified - for the keg or bucket option i don't intend on sealing the tops - I would leave the lids on loose, so if the ice became too much it would overflow and now blow up the vessel. @cactusgarrett - I don't believe that the alcohol would get trapped in the ice, from what...