BeerTools Discussion Forum

Learned quite a bit since my first post. Thanks to the advice and patience of Slothrob; I now understand the importance of yeast starters and temperature control. Although the end result looked quite nice; the taste of my first lager was less than desirable; but over time, seems to have cleaned up. ...

There should be plenty of yeast to carbonate the beer after priming, but one of the luxuries of kegging is being able to quickly and reliably force carbonate beer and not have a large yeast cake on the bottom to deal with later. Nothing better than a good coach. Thanks "slothrob"!... It's...

Temps have been holding steady now between 32 F & 35F for the last ten days so the plan is to let them both "lager" at those temps for another week then do another transfer into two more corny kegs for carbonation & conditioning. I plan to transfer tomorrow. I was originally plann...

If I tasted the beer and it tasted good, I'd probably just start lagering. The sample tasted good enough to me so I decided to pass on the "D" rest. After 14 days in the primary carboys I transferred into two 5 gal corny kegs. I failed to release the C02 pressure on the first receiving ke...

It's been twelve days now so an hour ago I took a gravity reading. It's 1.024 @ 48 F. The plan this weekend is to transfer into Corny kegs using low pressure C02 then start dropping temps 1 degree a day until temps reach 33-35 F for lagering for another two to three weeks. Make sure you give the yea...

I took a peek this morning after about 60 hrs & both carboys have a nice light colored layer of foam about 1/4 " thick with some nice slow bubbles coming out of the airlock at a steady pace. Thanks so much for helping avoid disaster & for the great learning experience! The plan is to ra...

So, do I understand that you are making a 10 gallon batch and splitting it between 2 carboys, then pitching the starter into 1 and the 2 packs into the other? Are you doing that as an experiment? Originally that was the plan, but as brew day progressed we had to adjust. Myself & a coworker have...

THANKS! I did exactly as you suggested & it is working great @ 1/4 throttle. Within 60 seconds the airlock started to bubble. That was my video I shot last night & put up on my homepage. I had some sanitizer left in a bucket so I sanitized a piece of foil & replaced the airlock with it. ...

Thanks! Decided to brew a 10 gal batch of Classic American Pilsner instead as the LHBS didn't have any WLP830 in stock when I called a few days ago. The Dunkel recipe is saved in BTP for another time. The Mrmalty.com yeast pitching calculator suggests a 3-4 Liter starter, with intermittent shaking, ...

I'm using BTP for the first time working up a recipe for my first lager. Thought I'd try a dark one... a Dunkel. Any suggestions on yeast? Looks like about 5.3% ABV so far. Do I need to pitch more than a standard packet or vial per 5 gal batch using 52 degrees F as pitch temp? Thanks in advance.

One nice thing about adding it to the finished beer is that you can pour a beer, add cinnamon to taste [/quote] I heeded your advice & added a few drops of some herbal "Cinnamon Liquid Stevia" to a 12 oz pour from the keg & it tasted like the fake sugar used to sweeten coffee &...

Hi all, Been brewing all grain on the "Ruby Street Brewery" system using "Beer Tools" with a co-worker for about 4 months now. We've brewed 9 batches so far & #9 is force carbonating in a Corny Keg on 12 lbs of C02 @ 40 degrees after a week in primary & two weeks in secon...