Search results

I've made two IPAs so far, and neither was quite what I'm looking for. In the good commercial IPAs they taste "clean" and "pure". What I mean is I get hop aroma, bitterness, malt, maybe some fruity smells from the hop and the yeast. However, my IPAs have been tasting kind of "muddy". I am...

Hey, I was wondering how you guys transferred your cooled wort to your primary. How do you filter our the hops and hot break? If you rack, how do you avoid them? I know one recommended method of avoid the junk is by whirlpooling. I stir my cooled wort up in a circular fashion to make a...

Hey all. I recently made a small beer from the second runnings of a higher gravity main batch. I know I sparged hot, but it was apparently too hot, or just too much sparging for the poor grains. I now have a ~4% abv small beer that is distinctly astringent. I was wondering if any of you had...

I was wondering if anyone had tried White Labs 575, a Belgian blend. I made a dubbel with it in early December that I just tried tonight. I pitched it a little cooler than the suggested temperature, but let it warm up to 68. Not bad, but I feel like the aroma and taste is a bit tilted toward...

So I was looking at this partial mash recipe for a smoked porter from BYO, and it calls for dark malt extract. I like to only work with light malt extract, but I'm not sure what the components of a dark extract are. Chocolate? Roasted? Dark crystal? What would you recommend to replace the...

Hey guys, there was a chart kicking around here somewhere that showed the best time to add flavor hops was at 20 minutes, but I forget the peak aroma hop addition time. Can anyone point me back at the thread? I can't seem to find it.

I'm putting together a Hopsdirect order, and I currently am getting Magnum, Hallertau, Willamette, and Cascade. I'm interesting in getting another US aroma hop for various ales over the summer (pale, IPA, IIPA, American amber, RyePA). Any good suggestions for something different from Cascade...

I've tried searching around, both here and Google, but my search-fu must be weak because I've not really found anything. I'm looking for a recipe or a clone approximating this year's Christmas Ale from Anchor Steam. Has anyone seen such a thread?

I was wondering from people who have experience working with this yeast how it performs at different temperatures. Specifically, I'd like to know at what temperatures it begins to be fruity, and where the dividing line is. Thanks!

So right now I'm drinking an Old Jubilation. To me, I get a kind of cloying, mouth filling sweetness that I associate with Wee Heavies. Maybe it's more than just a sweetness, it's a flavor / aroma that I strongly associate with the sweetness of a Wee Heavy. However, the Avery website says...

I am planning on making a roasty stout and an Irish red soon, and I am trying to decide on a yeast. I'm not a stranger to liquid yeast, starters, and washing, but I don't have any Irish ale yeast on hand. I was wondering what the difference in the final beer would be between the Irish ale...

So last night I washed yeast for the first time. Because it was my first time I'm sure everything didn't go perfectly, and I'm not entirely confident about it. Is there a way to tell if the yeast are clean before pitching a batch of beer? How easy is it to spot an infection or contamination...

I was wondering how accurate the Tastybrew IBU calculations are (from their recipe calculator). I just made this recipe, and I don't quite believe the predicted IBU of 50: Best Bitter Batch size: 4.5 gallons Boil size: 3 gallons 6 lbs LME 1 lb English 2 row, steeped 1/2 lb Carahell...

This is a dubbel I brewed on November 15th. The OG was 1.069 without added sugar. I let it ferment for three days down to SG 1.023 and then added about a pound of inverted and caramelized corn syrup. I brought the syrup to a simmer for 10 minutes, and then added to the beer. At that time...

On Saturday I made up a batch of schwarzbier as an ale. I wanted this to taste clean, so I chose Nottingham yeast and cooled my swamp cooler to 57°. However, by tonight, 48 hours later, I had noticed no airlock activity on my bucket. I know this isn't indicative of anything, but it makes...

I happen to love Kwak, I find it's more understated out of the Belgian beers. I was looking for any information on what is the closest yeast to what Bosteel's uses? There's a lot of information out there on Trappist yeasts and I happen to own BLAM, but Kwak doesn't seem to attract much...

I would like to make a clean tasting, crisp beer. I can cool down to 55°, so what are my best options among the dry yeasts? I'm debating between Saflager 23 and US-05 ale yeast. It's my understanding that S-23 will produce some estery characteristics when it's at the warmer end of its...

Good morning! This the is the first recipe I've worked on that was made more out of whole cloth instead of modifying an existing one. I want to make something that's similar to a [edit] schwarzbier, but I only have access to ale temperatures. My vision is a clean tasting beer, quite dark to...

I would like to brew a batch of what I would call a black lager-style ale. I'm planning to use a Munich dunkel recipe and ferment with Nottingham at the lowest temperatures I can reach in my swamp cooler, ~60-62°. Ideally I would brew this weekend. However, I will be leaving town for...

I started this question in another thread, which was an unintentional thread-jack, so I'm starting over here (sorry OP!). It is sometimes recommended to put a pound or so of extract in your mini/partial mash, to increase the fermentability of that extract by exposing it to the mash enzymes...