Recent content by stieg000

For Christmas I made some ginger simple syrup that I mixed with carbonated water I had on one of my taps. It turned out fairly close to a ginger beer I had purchased at Costco. Ginger syrup was 1/2# peeled and thinly sliced ginger root boiled for 30min in 2 cups water and 2 cups sugar.

For my high gravity beers I use a plastic 7.5g bucket for my 5.5g batches. More surface area for krausen.

Torpedoes come in smaller sizes and stack better. Torpedos cost 20 bucks more because they're new, for a 5g. I don't really see any other difference.

I'd let it free rise and let them sit in there for about 5 days before bottling.

2 tbls is not much at all. I usually dump half to 2/3 an 8oz can of powder into secondary. Or 8oz bag of cocoa nibs. I personally like nibs better.

Get 4.5Kg marris otter, some English yeast and use up a lot of that specialty malt and hops to make yourself a stout.

I would cold crash it overnight and keg it. I don't secondary anything anymore unless I'm adding wood, nibs or fruit.

Chill time will effect IBU too. I agree with schematic, go by taste. It doesn't really matter which calculator you use as long as you stick with the same one. The calculator provides a baseline that you'll have to calibrate to your own taste.

Just did my first NEIPA using this schedule but an extra day cold before racking it. I was a little worried how well it was going to turn out with the 1ib of dry hop. With the juice yeast it cleared up nice. I can smell the hops 5 or 6 feet away when just poured.

My vote is yeast.

I split batches all the time and turn 1 into a Belgian using sugar and some Belgian yeast. I do hefe/saison a lot. Scotch ale and Belgian double.

Never used black currant but vintners harvest makes a puree.

I would add the bourbon at bottling time. Do some experiments in a glass to see what tastes good then scale it up. As for the wood I prefer cubes but chips will work faster. You can add wood and sample with a thief as you go. I typically do about 3oz of cubes for 1-3 weeks.

Looks pretty good. You have enough specialty malts in there; you don't need lactose. I would drop the carapils altogether and add a little more wheat. The abbey ale yeast could give you quite a bit of spice flavor. I wouldn't use any spices other than the saffron.

Looks good, I forget Irish moss all the time and I've brewed about 75 batches over the past 7 years. Won't make a big difference.