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I recommend River North Brewery. Ironically, no longer in the River North neighborhood but a bit further north. They have a nice variety of really good beers, though they're best at big and barrel aged stuff.

I believe the Mr. Beer kits give 1-step cleaner. It's not sanitizer, but that doesn't mean you are likely to have an infection. You just have a higher risk. I also don't see anything that looks like an infection to me, though I've never had one on my beer. Going forward, I'd only use the...

Upslope, a Colorado micro brewery, makes a Thai White IPA that is delicious. Lemongrass, Thai basil and Corriander. You could try something similar. If not that, I find saison to work well with most herb and fruit additions.

I did some similar research before brewing my first saison late last summer. I went with Wyeast 3711 French Saison. Flavor will be mild-moderate funk, mild spice notes, and give a very dry finish. More important to me, it has a strong reputation of being the easiest saison yeast to use. It...

I currently bottle, but if I had a 3 tap kegerator, I'd go with a session British beer (mild, Irish stout, bitter, Irish Red), a cider, and a seasonal tap. I'd still bottle the occasional big beer that ages well.

Based on what you wanted I would have suggested a Cream Ale. Looks like mash up of German, American, and Mexican style lagers. Simple recipe that should be easy to pick out problem if a batch doesn't turn out. Sounds like a good first all grain lager.

I think hard and fast rules about how long bottled beer takes to carbonate cause people to either miss out on drinking beer at its best or waste beer that isn't ready. Light session strength beers carb fast and taste best as fresh as possible - great with a single week in the bottle. Opening a...

While that looks like a good beer, it's not what I think of as Irish Red. If I wanted an Irish Red based off this, Instead of Pils and Melanoidian, I'd add more MO. Then I'd used the traditional Roasted Barley instead of Special B. Then just for personal taste I'd swap the fuggle and EKG...

I would add that if the OP splits this into 5 batches, I think it is best suited to BIAB. All the volume and efficiency concerns for scaling down to 1 gallon batches on a more traditional system seems like a huge source of potential error.

Roasted is definitely better, raw have a harsh edge. 325deg F works for me. I've only done 15 minutes so I don't know about optimum roast time.

Did you add a little fresh yeast at bottling? Interested if it will carb if you didn't.

Colorado State.

Pay for all of my daughter's college. Thanks to scholarships, I'd have enough left for a keezer.

I agree to wait until the SG is stable. How little by will depend on the current alcohol content and yeast health. Anywhere from 1-4 weeks can be expected.

Certainly easy and delicious, but not what I'd consider the strongest Belgian character. Not to mention this is a French Saison yeast so isn't technically a Belgian flavor (though close enough in most cases).

If you take the suggested hydrometer reading and it's still high, I wouldn't add yeast. Certain strains of Belgian yeast are known to stall out if they don't stay warm enough. You might need to warm up the beer to get the yeast to finish fermenting. A common way to warm the beer is a hot water...

If you do this, look for the initial boiling point. That is the temperature when you first see boiling. The composition will change as it boils and the temperature will increase as you get less and less alcohol.

I only have about as much experience as the OP, but for what it's worth here is what has made the bigger difference in my beer. The key for me is to get each right in respect to the style of beer. 1 Water. Mostly getting Ca, Cl, and SO4 right for the style and gravity of the beer. 2...

My wife makes crab apple jelly most years from our crazy productive tree. I added some to a saison this year - came out amazing. I'd recommend adding the strained juice instead of apple pieces/mash as they take up a good amount of space and reduce the yield of your cider/beer.

I don't have any I can't brew again, but I made a crab apple saison I won't repeat the way I did it. I made a really basic saison than racked it on 7 lb of mashed up crab apples from my tree (frozen and thawed). It took almost 2 months for the crab apples to ferment and made so many lees I...