Recent content by ReaderRabbit

With dried fruits, aren't you supposed to stick to unsulfured varieties? I thought the sulfur dioxide can kill yeast cultures.

A few years ago, I tried homebrewing an ESB and a stout to use in making black & tan drinks but they ended up too similar and kept mixing together. Thus, I'd like to try again but be a little more deliberate in trying to end up with beers that have a different density. At first, I thought I...

The creme cheese was good but not perfect. It was thick and tart but the tartness tasted more like yogurt (unsurprisingly) than cream cheese. However, the chocolate cheesecake made from it was perfect. The flavor was just right, the texture was dense. It took more time but the effort was about...

Most of the recipes are nut-based, most use raw cashews, probably because they're soft and easy to puree. Some use yogurt culture (from cultured coconut, soy or almond milk) for the tartness and thickness. Others use something called rejuvelac which can be made by sprouting grain and soaking it...

Just wondering, has anyone tried the recipes in this book? I've made a few simple dairy cheeses (ricotta, marscapone and mozzarella) but I've got a couple friends who are really lactose intolerant (and the pill doesn't work on them, sadly) who miss their cheese. At first glance, I like that...

The Brooklyn Brew Shop book has a "black & tan" recipe. Unfortunately, I screwed it up and spilled some of the "tan" wort which seems to have brought the FG closer. However, I found a way to make it work. I use plastic bottles with a screw cap, which allows me to open the bottle just a...

Here's something I've been trying to figure out but with no success on the Google-fu -- is there something about wheat that calls for a particular type of yeast strain? I know to make a hefewiesen or a witbier I need a yeast that will create the right flavors, but what I'm wondering is: 1. If...

Unfortunately, I did something wrong with the last of the sweet mochi rice in the house. The rice came out of the steamer pretty dry and there was no liquifying, just a black mold that grew on the rice. I finally gave up hoping that it was really okay and it was pretty foul. Just started a...

Cold crashing is when you put your beer in the fridge for 24 hours before bottling. That encourages the trub on the bottom to compact. Probably one of the big advantages (to me, at least) with 1 gallon brewing is that cold crashing is pretty easy. It's not easy to make room for a 5 gallon carboy...

Since it's been in the high 40s in my garage, I decided to try making my first lagers a couple months ago. To start, I made a small (1.5 gal) batch of Octoberfest lager to function like a starter. Since I used to like the Gordon Biersch Marzen, my second 3 gallon batch was the same, just in a...

Thanks! That helped a lot!

I've tried searching for this but haven't had much success. I read an article that wasn't about mead (an article about rice wine, perhaps?) that made a mention of a mead making technique where you slowly add more honey as the must ferments, that way the yeast has time to multiply and can...

I made a gallon of Brooklyn Brew Shop's Honey & Date Ale recipe a few weeks ago, except that I wanted to give the honey and date flavors a chance to shine more and put it in secondary after a couple weeks. After a week of the beer fermenting with a blowoff tube, I switched it to and airlock...

I found this thread useful as someone who uses idophor. I've thought about trying StarSan but I was worried if its an acid-based sanitizer if I would need to use gloves or deal with irritated hands afterwards.

There was an airlock on it but I wasn't sure how much co2 would be there since I primaried it in a bucket for a week before racking it to the carboy. Then again, I had to refill the airlock. Since I fill them with vodka, evaporation usually means that there's been a good amount of bubbling...