Recent content by MTimonin

Right - so, what I'm hearing is, these are probably not worth the effort of moving them when we relocate next month. The quantity in each package is too much for the size of batch I'm brewing - I think they were packaged for commercial brewers - and they might not be worth using anyway... I will...

So - they're vacuum sealed, and they've been in the basement, which is not overly warm, and reasonably dark most of the time. But they haven't been in the freezer, no.

Hey folks: A while back - 2 years, more or less - an acquaintance gave me several pounds of vacuum sealed pellatized hops. I don't know quite how old they were when he gave them to me, but I do know that they are at least 2 years older than that now, and I also know that they are in packages...

Well, if all the bottles were flat, I'd say it was probably the priming, but only some of the bottles are flat. I should mention that I have some older bottles and some newer bottles (and, of course, I didn't mark them in anyway, so I have no way of knowing if the old ones or the new ones are at...

So, my wife loves this one particular kit, the Brewer's Best Red Ale. I make it every other batch, more or less. This past time, we decided to put it into EZ Cap swing tops, because that means, when we split a bottle for dinner, we each feel like we've got enough beer, but neither of us feel...

Exactly. I'll continue to monitor the situation closely, but I suspect it's the bottles, so I'll re-evaluate my cleaning and sanitizing.

The bottles were clean before sanitizing, and the caps were sanitized before use. It certainly can't hurt to start soaking the bottles over night (although I'm not sure I have a container big enough for 50 odd bottles to soak in). I bottle in the kitchen, and it's entirely possible that...

Barley Bob - All of the bottles are in the basement - it's fairly cool down there in the summer (60-65 F, I'd say); too cold for fermenting in the winter.

Put my racking cane into overly warm sanitizer, and bent it, slightly... Plus, that pesky tap on the bottling bucket...

Carbonation has been delightful, lots of nice head. I suppose it's possible that some of the bottles were infected - I'm pretty obsessive with my bottle cleaning (I've been sanitizing in a warm to hot bath, with starsan - I'm told that I don't actually need to do that), but stuff happens. I...

Sadly, when I tried to sell my LBKs (I had TWO!), I was unsuccessful - so I abandoned them at the old apartment and moved to a 5 gal system here. Now I wish I had kept them!

I made a batch of Biermuncher's Centennial Ale. It's been bottled for well over two months now, and it's drinkable (although it took longer to bottle condition and mellow than I expected). However, I'm noticing considerable variation of flavor between bottles - one will be great, another is...

So, two batches ago, I made (an extract version of) Biermuncher's Centennial ale. (just opened bottles yesterday, turned out great!) I bought more grain than I needed, due to some confusion between the Beersmith shopping list and my brain. So I have two large ziplocks of grain in my freezer, and...

I've been messing around with Beersmith, and I've put this together on paper. It's a 5 gallon batch (because I have a 5 gallon set up), and I'm not getting fancy with the water - just bottled spring water. What would you add, take away, or generally do differently? 2 lbs...

The ones I saw were an apple beer, which I'm highly dubious of...