BeerTools Discussion Forum

I dry hop my IPA's in the secondary all the time....never had an issue. I don't worry so much about the hops being a source of contamination, but I take care to boil the knee high stockings that I use to hold the hops.

I would recommend brewing far enough ahead that you can let your beer condition for at least 2 to 3 months. I have found the flavors to be best with most of my beers at about this age. If it's a very complex or highly hopped beer, I'll let it sit for 3 to 5 months if I can.

I gave filtering a shot about 10 years ago, and came to the conclusion that it was really an unnecessary expense, and for the most part did not add any value to the beers. Most of my beers come out very clear anyway, but there is nothing wrong with cloudy beer.

As someone else said, start with a couple of kits, and brew with someone who has brewed before if you can. Make sure everything post boil is CLEAN and SANITIZED. And while your brewing the kits, start thinking about how you want to scale up....because you'll be hooked!!

Hey everyone, I am new this forum as of a few minutes ago. Not new to brewing however, I have been brewing for about 15 years now. I just finished a brew session that will ultimately end up as a "Bourbon Barrel Porter". Cold day for brewing here in Cleveland as it was about 15F out by the ...

I use a Sanke keg for my boil kettle and run at about 15% per hour boil off rate.