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This has been my first attempt at a high gravity beer. The brewing process went smoothly but after 4 weeks my gravity has only dropped to 1.040. The OG was 1.090. I pitched with with Irish Ale yeast and a Nottingham Ale Dry yeast because of the high OG. I at 3 weeks it was 1.042 and I added...

I feel like I am getting the hang of this. I knocked out a Magic Hat #9 clone last night in about 4.5 hrs. Target gravity was 1.047, I hit 1.050 I use my first round of self frozen yeast with a starter and it worked beautifully. I bought my first bulk purchase of grains, 55 lbs of...

I tried a Magic Hat Circus Boy Hefe Clone with the following recipe. I did a side by side comparison yesterday and I wasn't close. Well is wasn't that bad, but significantly off. I used 7 lbs wheat malt 7 lbs 2-row (been having efficiency problems, thats why the high grain bill)...

So I have been collecting, cleaning, and freezing yeast since I went AG and I was starting to get a nice little collection. I was planning on using one in my upcoming batch but I wanted to check it to make sure everything was good to go before I just tossed it in my wort. So I made a starter...

So I just completed doing my 6th AG brew and I can't seem to get my efficiency up. My efficiency history has been: Stout 1 - 62% Stout 2 - 60% Bavarian Weizenbier - 50% Belgian Ale - 55% Pale Ale - 49% Hefeweizen - 50% I have redone my MLT and got a cooler that holds temps much...

I have been trying to get a hydrometer reading of my wort before the boil...err actually during the boil. So I was wondering if it is even possible to get an accurate reading of boiling wort, or if the mere act of boiling makes it impossible. Seems like I always get readings of 1.000 or...

After reading through some posts here I came across one and people were talking about there IPAs and how great they were. I personally am not the biggest fan of the IPAs, although I do like some brands. Recently myself and a few friends noticed that people who smoked like bitterer beer. Now...

I am planning on doing a Hennepin clone and I am going to use a step mash, but instead of doing it in my cooler I am going to do it in my brewpot on the stove. I have attached a SS braid and I think I am ready to go. Any advice or tips for my first direct heat mash on a stove?

I am going to be doing a Hennepin Clone this weekend... The recipe is as follows: 2 lbs candi sugar (I heard 2 lbs of cane sugar was fine so that is what I am using) 9 lbs Pils malt 3 lbs pale malt 1.5 oz styrian goldings for 60 min 0.5 oz Saaz for 15 min 1 oz bitter orange peel...

Yesterday I had a bunch of friends over to have a good time, grill out, and observe the brewing process. Everything was going fine until people showed up and it starting thunderstorming. With all the guests I could not give my beer to be the attention that it needed. The boil was hardly a boil...

I have built myself a small, 3-liter keg and I am in the process of force carbonating it. I have read elsewhere to use 20 psi and then shake it to get the CO2 in the beer....and it is working great...I just don't known when to stop. I am using a 12g CO2 cartridge attached to the top with a...

Has anyone ever tried to harvest yeast from a commercial hefeweizen to use with there homebrew? (or any commercial no-filtered beer) I was thinking this might be a good way to get some free yeast and also a good way to replicate a commercial beer because you have the exact yeast that they...

I have seen that people priming there bottles with all kinds of things, but I haven't heard of anybody trying pepsi. I am doing a stout and I thought that the caramelly flavor of pepsi and the corn sugar that it is mostly comprised of might give it an interesting (and good) flavor. If...

Last night I did my first AG. It wasn't the smoothest process ever and some of my little gadgets broke. Nothing critical though. I had a little bit of a problem my mash temp at 154. I used blankets and it helped a little, although not as much as I would have liked. Overall time it took me was...

I have not done an AG brew yet but I have been getting everything ready. I have read that aeration during the extration is not good but I was thinking about recirculating the initial runoff through my sparging setup. The setup sits on the bottom side of the lid of my cooler and drips the water...

I currently have a Belgian Tripel in the secondary and I have noticed that it was cloudy when I first put it in and after a week now it has become much clearer. I usually do about a week in the primary before I rack to the secondary. Should I do a tertiary fermentation after most of the yeast...

I am trying to make a 3-liter keg and I am using a modified version of the following two websites. http://home.chattanooga.net/~cdp/3lkeg/3lkeg.htm#hydro http://home.swbell.net/bufkin/cheap_3_liter_kegs.htm I have never kegged anything before so at this point I feel like I have gotten...

My first batch of cider, to my disappointment, has turned out a flop. So I am here now trying to figure out what went wrong. I squeezed my own apples and used camden's tablets. I crushed 5 tablets and put them in a little more than 5 gallons of cider. I waited overnight (about 12 hours)...

I am currently working on my first attempt at a hard cider. I squeezed 5 bushels of mixed apples and got about 6 gallons of cider. I used 5 gallons and put that in my primary fermenter and added 5 campdens tablets. The next day I added champayne yeast. After about 10 days I checked the gravity...