BeerTools Discussion Forum

Tell me what you think of this. In a recipe on a tear-away card inside BYO magazine from Cooper's, the directions instruct the brewer to steep the specialty grains , then bring the water back to a boil, add the hops accoeding to hop schedule, and then add the malt extract (LME or DME) at the end aft...

Best of luck to you in your new store. For all the heart you put into it, I hope you have a lot of customers and many years of success.

Good thinking, but nope. The local brewshop I get my stuff from always has fresh stuff, and California Ale is one of the more popular/common strains.

It's cold outside Push. But I have never had such a slow start before, or such a long lasting primary. I always ferment in my basement and never have much of any trouble with starting from the pitchable vials. Because I did'nt do anything differently, I suspected the yeast may have been the problem.

I used the White Labs California ale yeast pitchable vial for my latest brew. I have used the pitchable vials quite a few times with good success. Although I believe the wort was well aerated, fermentation was not very active for about two days, and now it is still bubbling about every 8 seconds aft...

I have been told by another brewer that adding molasses can contribute to higher final gravities, as I had this same problem with a porter I recently brewed. Also, that brewer told me to expect it to take up to 5 months for the brew to condition and balance the molasses. Good luck!

I am working on a recipe for a 3.5 gal batch of ectract based American Amber Ale. Because I am doing a smaller batch size, i was thinking of doing a 45 minute boil. I plan on using Cascade hops for that American Amber taste. The IBU's in my theoretical recipe are right where I want them with a 45 mi...

I know man! It's just weird. My wife was teaching college tonight, so I cleaned some bottles to have ready for my mild brown ale on Saturday. I took special care of an old flip top wine bottle that I got out of an estate sale. It looks like a huge grolsch bottle without all the embossing. It is prob...

Thanks Chris! I like the formula of that recipe. I especially like the unusual addition of a small amount of Roasted barley, which I brew with alot. I will probably make this one in December. By the way, the directions on the website for brewing this beer had some humor to it that made me laugh out ...

I know you will all think I am crazy for saying this. I enjoy cleaning bottles. I find it to be very relaxing. And because I only brew about once a month or so, bottling and cleaning isn't such a big chore really. I have nearly three cases of bottles that still need to have labels removed and cleane...

I have recently come into possession of a can of hopped extract that is well beyond its "best if used by" date. It is a Brewmart Czech Pilsner kit. I have heard others say that canned extract never truly goes bad, it just may darken up a bit. I am curious to try to formulate a half batch o...

English style Brown ales, I love em'! I realize this site has many brown ale recipes. I am hoping someone can reccommend a tried and true extract style recipe for me to make some. For reference, I like Newcastle, and I recently fell in love with the Nut Brown ale from RedHook brewery. Also ,for our ...

Thanks for your definitive and educatinal answers. You take such good care of us all!

I have a quick question aboutd a porter I brewed in late September, and bottled in early October. The recipe I created used A half bottle of molasses, and some brown sugar as adjunct ingredients. I had some problems with this batch, and the finishing gravity was slightly too high. Now, the beer has ...

Do you think that the high final gravities of these two batches may have any effect on the finished beer? Also, in a previous post,Mesa discussed rousing English ale yeast to get a complete fermentation. How hard do I need to shake that bucket to do this? When I racked the stout to secondary, the ye...