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I cracked a bottle of this last night after just over 2 weeks in the bottle. It's awesome. I'll give it another week or two to smooth out, but SWMBO wants to drink it all right now. This recipe is a winner.

Rock on... thanks. Just wanted to get some more sets of eyes on it. I haven't seen bubbles like that before, but it didn't really look like anything nasty, either. It's also a little surprising that Notty hasn't dropped out completely, but no big deal. I was going to rack to secondary to...

This is my amber ale, 11 days old. I took a hydro sample two days ago and gave it a gentle swirl to try to get some of the yeast colonies on top to drop out. I took another sample today, and saw this (the clear spot on the right is where I drew today's sample): The beer tastes fine: the...

Have you looked at BierMuncher's OktoberFAST and EdWort's Bee Cave Oktoberfest? Both ales in the general Oktoberfest style. Both have some Munich in addition to the Vienna and Pilsner, with Pilsner malt making up less than half of the grain bill. Ed calls for WLP029, and I just used it in...

I brewed up Austin Homebrew's Long Trail Ale clone and, while it's still a little green (I don't think I gave WLP029 enough time to clean itself up in primary), it's a good beer. I can't say if it's an exact clone, though--I haven't had Long Trail in ages, and really only bought the kit because...

I gave up on removing labels after my second or third batch. I just rinse the empties really well (right after pouring) and then hang them on the bottle tree. On bottling day, I hit them with some StarSan from the vinator and fill them. Easy as pie. I've got about 150 in the rotation right...

You can't go wrong with Centennial Blonde. (The extract recipe is here.)

Ah, interesting! (I'm clearly behind-the-times a bit; I'll have to read through that thread.) And doubly-interesting, I suppose, because, in the experiment, they made a serious effort to keep trub out of the fermenter. I wonder, then, if dumping all the break material in the fermenter would...

Hope I didn't miss a thread about this, but has anybody listened to the latest Basic Brewing Radio podcast? The topic is the result from the BYO partial boil experiment, comparing hops utilization and color differences between full boil, partial boil, and partial boil with late extract addition...

You're not kidding. I just managed 5 more points than I'd planned on a 5.5lb (partial mash) grain bill. Yee-haw.

I used the BrewBuilder discount last week omitting the hops and yeast: just got grains and extract (for PM). Awesome price. I'm really happy with the order, too. Really well-packed and labeled (and very, very few packing peanuts in the box, which is great; whenever there's a bunch of those...

Exactly. I tend to brew (and bottle) when I would otherwise be watching TV, reading a book, playing a video game, or sleeping. That is, not making money. If you have a few spare hours every couple of weeks, homebrewing can definitely be a money-saver (well, unless your consumption increases...

I try to keep it around 64-65 when I can. I fermented around 64 with Notty this week, though, and it took a 1.050 beer to 1.012 in somewhere south of 96 hours. Yee-haw.

I brewed this on Monday, and man, that airlock smells awesome. I want to stick a straw in there and start drinking every time I swap out the ice in the swamp cooler.

I do partial mashes and partial boils with tap water, but I use bottled water for top-up. I just buy the 2.5-gallon store-brand square jugs of spring water (not distilled). I don't pierce the "vent" on the jug, and re-use them for 2-gallon batches of apfelwein (they're #2 HDPE).

I pitched my first pack of Notty since the recall yesterday afternoon. I didn't note the Lot#, but I think it was from Denmark, expiration date 06-2011. I forgot to check on it this morning (oops), but tonight it's chugging right along. Looks like it'll be fine.

Yup, I've never had a problem with a single packet of dry yeast (well, except when I did have a problem... but it wasn't because 11g isn't enough). I usually start rehydrating right as the boil ends so it's ready to pitch when the wort is chilled.

I haven't had any trouble with the coarse bag that I use. Maybe a little bit of grain dust in the wort, but nothing that's impacted flavor, so far as I can tell. I don't know if a fine mesh bag would get clogged with grain... maybe, maybe not. In any case, coarse mesh works fine. (And...

I usually do late extract additions for slightly better hop utilization (since I'm boiling something like 1.030 wort) and lighter color. Some people will boil the extract for the last 15 minutes, but I tend to take my chances with temperature and just dissolve it all at the end of the boil. I...