Recent content by wtfDean

I made a holiday spice ale last year with cinnamon among other things. I learned that less is more when adding a cinnamon extract to the secondary. I can't say how much is too much but I found my spiced beer to have a harsh and unpleasant back of the palate taste that took several months to...

As stated above, there are QDs for the in and the out, they are not the same. Perhaps you have a mismatch? I also suggest some keg lube. Everything works better with lube

Instead of washing yeast I save my White Labs vial and pour some of the starter back into the sanitized vial before pitching the starter to the fermenter. This only gives you one extra vial, but pouring off a bit of each starter gives you virtually unlimited batches. This way you can dump the...

To answer your question about particular kits, I don't recommend any one over another. If there is a brew supply store near you, they probably have a list of kits to pick from. If not and you're on the west coast, I like Williams Brewing. Northern Brewer is another trusted name. I suggest you...

I think a brown or an amber would be good starter beers. My first was an English brown and it was very straight forward.

Light to dark is fine, as stated above. How do you normally aerate? You shouldn't have to use any different method. If you rock back and forth to shake it up usually then just do that. I use an air stone the same way when racking on a yeast cake as when pitching a starter. It could be worthwhile...

As long as the OG of the new beer is greater than the old beer, you ought to be fine. I have done this many times. I am not familiar with that type of beer you are cloning, but use common sense. An IPA racked on to the yeast cake of a sweet stout is probably not going to be ideal, obviously. An...

Thanks for the reassurance! I won't be turning the compressor on its side so it sounds like I'm ok.

bump

I am converting a 4.5cf Haier mini fridge into a kegerator. When I started pulling all of the shelves out I realized that the freezer compartment wasn't just a shelf, but the cooling coils for the unit. After doing some googling I found that people bend the shelf flat and put it somewhere else...

I single hopped with Citra for the first time recently and the beer turned out fantastic

This is just like the "decoction mash vs no decoction mash because grains are more modified than they used to be" argument. "It has no benefit" is always the battle cry. Go ahead and take that advice. Or do whatever you want because it doesn't matter and your beer will taste fine.

Isn't that more of a kettle fining?

I just read that thread too! I have no idea what they could be referring to, since the gelatin is only collecting the particulate in the beer (and as far as I know, hop flavor should not come from suspended particulate!). In my opinion, based on my knowledge, there really shouldn't be much...

Based on my experience, I think you can safely bottle according to your original schedule. I would be surprised if there was much left in that beer to work on after that amount of time. Science geeks: you may blast me for being unscientific and not having numbers.