BeerTools Discussion Forum

The bleach should break it down, but I'm not sure of the contact time required. I think I would use some soap and a soft rag to wipe it out, rinse good, then follow it up with your bleach soak. Afterwards, rinse good again and it should be fine to sanitize at that point.

Aside from the tips Cleone advises, good old cold aging does the trick for me. I'll normally cold age my ales near freezing for a month before tapping them (lagers are a bit longer). The cold causes any chill haze components to come out of suspension and gravity pulls them to the bottom. I always ge...

Well...as for me, work is kickin' my tail right now...I've been drained of energy. I know, I know, it's brewing blasphemy, but what's a guy to do?

I'd completely forgotten about it...now it's too late

Star San stays effective as long as the pH is less than 3.0. If you mixed it in the right proportions, then the cloudiness is caused by the hardness in your water. If you mixed it with distilled water it'd stay clear. You can get an inexpensive pH meter for about $30--it's a good investment for brew...

I haven't performed a sour mash either. But from what I remember reading you want the lactobacillus, resident on the grain, to do the work. They are anaerobic, so you don't want the sour mash exposed to air. Seal the mash tun with Saran wrap or similar and let it sit undisturbed. I believe 12-24 hou...

The ferment is done normally within a week, the rest of the time is for aging to allow the flavors to blend. The stronger a beer is, the more time you want it to spend aging. If you tasted it young, it might seem a bit 'rough.' If you're new to brewing, I would personally recommend starting with som...

You're fine. When it's done fermenting, just allow it enough time for it to clear so the hops and other particulates settle at the bottom before you rack it out of your carboy.

Hi, Mark. Welcome to the forum!

One of the standard methods is to use an aquarium air pump pushing air through a sterile filter (to keep out airborne nasties). On the other end of the hose you could use a sintered stone to make really fine bubbles--this end goes in the wort. Something like this: http://morebeer.com/product.html?pr...

Maltodextrin powder will be your friend here. It has 1.040 points per pound per gallon (ppppg). In other words, if you added one pound of maltodextrin in one gallon of water, you'll get a specific gravity of 1.040. In a 5 gal batch this would raise the gravity by 8 points. So you'll probably want to...

Per given weight, pellets will give you more IBUs in the kettle. Leaf hops will also absorb wort, so this should be factored into your post-volume boil calculation. And for the life of me, I can't remember the rate just now because I'm trying to figure it out for my last few batches. Can anyone chim...

To make a 'lager like' beer with ale yeast, use a neutral yeast such as US56 (dry) or Wyeast 1056.

Racking too early has its drawbacks--it could prematurely stall your fermentation. My ROT is to just let it be for 2 weeks for an ale, and 1 month for a lager to complete primary ferment. After that is when I begin the secondary phase. As far as the lower FG, it could be a number of factors. Without...

We're talking VIOLENT...foam everywhere. Make sure to leave plenty of headspace and use a BBBOT (big bore blow-off tube). You should be ok only filling it half way. The BBBOT (about 1" diam) should be routed to a small bucket of water as an airlock--use this configuration until things calm down...