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Due to my housing situation, I am unable to brew til the first of August. But I'd like to enter the homebrew competition at my local county fair, which is the first of Sept. What style would be good for a relatively short fermentation and conditioning period? I'd like to do a wheat and/or...

I just brewed my first partial mash, an oatmeal stout, from a Northern Brewer kit. The instructions say the the OG should be 1042. Mine was 1032. What factors determine the OG? What might I have done differently to make the gravity higher?

Years ago when I was in Ireland, I enjoyed many a pint of Guinness with Black Currant added to it. I would like to experiment with currants in a stout recipe, but I can't find any online. The recipes I've seen are for fruit beers, or wheats or lighter ales. If I were to add black currant...

I tried my Holiday Ale for the first time yesterday. Brewed from a Brewer's Best extract kit. It sat in the primary for about 7 days, then in secondary for a couple of weeks, then in bottles for the full 21 days. The recipe kit contained corn sugar, as an alcohol booster. The beer has what I...

Just wanted to let everyone know about iStock, which sells high-quality royalty-free illustrations (plus photos, video, and audio) for not much money. Do a search for "beer label" and you'll see many designs that you could simply add type to. There are also great illustrations you can use on...

I am eager to try different kits and recipes (still doing extract brewing for the time being), but at 5 gallons a pop, I just can't afford to brew very often. And I can't drink/give away all that beer. So I'm wondering if it's possible to make 1-2 gallon batches. If so, do you just divide the...

I am still quite the noob. I just found out that you can re-use yeast. I have a Holiday Ale in secondary (Nottingham yeast). Can I use this, or is it preferable to save the yeast from the primary?

Third batch ever. I have it in secondary, and have checked the gravity twice, so that I'll know when it's ready to bottle. I'm using a wine thief to take a sample, which means I have to take off the stopper of the carboy. Doesn't this release all the CO2 and introduce oxygen?

This is my third ever batch, a Holiday Ale kit from Brewers Best. The SG was 1.076, per the instructions (the kit contained extra corn sugar). So far, so good. I proofed the yeast, and pitched it at ~70°. I got about 2 inches of foam in the primary, but nothing vigorous (on my previous batch...

There's a sticky thread above that states: If at 3 days nothing seems to of happened then take a gravity reading to make sure you haven't missed the fermentation. What should I be looking for? My SG was 1.076. In other words, what number will tell me that the fermentation is occurring?

Just brewed my third ever batch. I have several different instructions — the ones in the kit, the Papazian book, the Palmer book, etc., and they all say different things. I stirred my brew pot to create a whirlpool, so that the sediment would gather in the center. I poured the wort into the...

I just got a Brewer's Best Holiday Ale kit. It came with 1 lb. of corn sugar. From what I have read thus far, corn sugar is not a desirable ingredient. So I am hesitant to start, but I am also hesitant to stray from the recipe. Any thoughts/suggestion?

My third batch ever is now ready to be consumed. I still haven't quite got the hang of the hydrometer, so is there a way to tell what the alcohol content is now? The brew is an Imperial IPA, which had extra malt extract and was dry-hopped. I think my hydrometer readings were SG: 1.050 and...

I'm making an Imperial Pale Ale. Since the recipe called for more malt (8 lbs. LME) than normal, and since I have had less than stellar fermentation on my first two batches (a pale ale and a wit —*this is my third-ever batch), I added one-and-a-half packages of yeast. It's been bubbling up a...

I don't have a wort chiller, just using the brewpot-in-an-icewater-bath thing, and it occurred to me — isn't having the cooling wort sitting out for so long a bad thing? Is the risk higher for contamination?

I'm brewing from a recipe that calls for 8 lbs. of liquid malt extract. I bought 3 cans of it which comes to about 10 lbs (3 x 3.3). Can I store the extra 2 lbs. ? What's the best way? Thanks.

Hi folks - I have an apricot wit that I adapted from a recipe in a book. The book said the fermentation would take 15-20 days. I am on day 13, and thus far, there is some bubbling happening on top of the liquid in the carboy, but the airlock is not bubbling, and it never has, as far as I can...