Questions tagged [beer]
A fermented beverage where the majority of the fermentable sugars are derived from malted grains via mashing.
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If/When to move to secondary fermentation
Digression from What's the point of secondary fermentation?
What are the good rules of thumb for determining a. whether to use secondary fermentation at all and b. when to move from primary to ...
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What are the advantages and disadvantages of transferring to a secondary vs. a long primary?
The conventional wisdom in homebrewing has been challenged in recent years. This wisdom held that a beer should be transferred from the primary fermentation vessel to a secondary one after 7-10 days. ...
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What equipment do I need to buy to start making beer?
What is the minimum equipment to start brewing some good beer at home?
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Too long in Primary Fermentation?
What's the maximum amount of time for primary fermentation, assuming the beer is going straight to bottles next?
Will it over ferment and then fail to carbonate, if left too long in a carboy?
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How to add fruit to beer
What is the best way to add fruit to a beer? I'm afraid boiling it will break down the fruit too much (a muslin bag could fix this I guess), but I'm not sure how to add it to the fermenter without ...
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How to Properly Oxygenate Wort
How much oxygen do I need to put into my wort?
I've heard that homebrewers need to aerate with an oxygen stone and either aquarium pumps or oxygen. Is this true, or is shaking my carboy enough to ...
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Long cooling before pitching
Summer brewing means warmer tap water, which means that my immersion chiller can only cool the wort to about 75 degrees. I typically cool the wort to 68 degrees before pitching. I have a ...
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Partial vs. Full Volume Wort Boil
The starting position for most new extract brewers is to use a partial boil set up. Defined as using a pot smaller than the intended batch size, all the ingredients are boiled in a smaller volume. ...
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What's the difference between 2-row and 6-row malt?
I know the difference has to do with how the grains grow on the stock, but I'm not completely sure what that difference is. It also seems like 2-row is more commonly used as a base malt, but I've seen ...
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Should I ferment a new batch directly on the yeast cake generated by the previous batch?
I'm going to re-use the yeast cake from a low-gravity batch to ferment a high-gravity batch.
Can I just put the wort directly on it? Does it then need to be agitated?
Is it worth the risk of ...
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Wort aeration on a budget
To aerate my wort I have been using a whisk, but i am worried about contamination. What are other more effective ways to aerate wort without spending too much money?
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What are some alternatives to hops?
I have a friend that is allergic to hops and can not drink our beer (or just about any others for that matter). What alternatives do I have if I want to make a beer for him? What could I substitute ...
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Why do all my beers taste better after having aged for a couple months?
My impression is that ales are typically best drunk within a couple weeks of brew day. It's my experience that letting them age in the bottles for 2-3 months yields the best beer, both improving body, ...
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Performing a hop boil seperate from the wort boil.
I'm curious to try some single-hop style beers and would like to do several varieties in one brew day. My ideal situation would be to make a five gallon batch of an unhopped pale ale as the base and ...
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What are some good online sources for recipes?
What are some good online sources for recipes? Please specify the type of recipes the site has (extract, all-grain, mead, cider, etc.).
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Do I need to sterilize my top-off water?
I just purchased my first kit and am about to brew it (tonight!).
The instructions provided indicate that after cooling the wort and tranfering it to the sanitized carboy I need to top it off with ...
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What is the minimum amount of equipment to dabble in All-Grain?
What is the minimum amount of equipment I need to have to brew very simple all-grain recipes? Bonus points for cheap & easy-to-find equipment. I'd like to go all-grain eventually, but for the time ...
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How to clear beer
I am brewing my first homebrew an American cream ale. Was just reading into secondary fermentation. In the directions and books I've read it seems to suggest doing this. But as I search online and ...
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Can I use wine yeast to ferment beer?
Can I use wine yeast to ferment a beer? What sort of problems might I encounter that are unique to wine yeast trying to ferment malt sugars? What sort of flavor differences might I encounter?
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Are some types of beers easier to brew than others?
I'm just getting started with home brewing. Are some types of beer easier to brew than others? Would you suggest starting with a certain type for my very first brew?
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Process for transfereing from boil kettle to fermenter
At the moment the most frustrating part of my brewday is getting the cold wort into the fermenter. Here is my process. I have a 20 litre saucepan that i use as a kettle that does not have a tap. At ...
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How to get clearer and more clarified home-brewed beers?
I'm still pretty new to home-brewing, but I've got a couple of extract kits under my belt so far and I was wondering how I could get more clarified beers. I've used both Irish moss and Whirlfloc ...
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Any People with Celiacs Tried Clarity Ferm?
There's been a lot of discussion around Clarity Ferm, and it's ability to break down gluten in beer.
The manufacturers just say it makes "gluten reduced beer", but Omission and others uses it to make ...
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When bottle conditioning, when should I re-yeast, and how much yeast should I add
I have a Chocolate Cherry Stout that is currently in secondary on fresh Cherries. It has been sitting on the cherries for 2 months now.
As I prepare to bottle I want to be sure I have enough, healthy ...
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should hoppy beers be aged?
Do hoppy beers not need to be aged? About how long does it take a hoppy beer to get to its maturation point?
Thanks,
Chris
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Why is our beer not carbonating?
We've made a few batches of beer and our recent batches have not ended up as carbonated as previous. I think the beer has been stored in a cooler place but I'm wondering if that is the only reason. ...
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When to harvest wild hops?
Hi there fellow brewmasters! I have recently moved to all-grain brewing after two years of brewing with hopped extracts. The results are pretty good, and the whole process is a lot of fun, but I am ...
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How do you malt your own barley?
My local health food store sells various types of grain, including barley, which are labelled "unprocessed". So my question is - can I malt this barley and use this in my homebrew? How does one malt ...
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How long can homebrew stay in the primary fermenter?
I just put down my first brew and should have bottled it last week but had something come up. How long will it be good for?
If I bottle it this weekend will it still be good or is there something I ...
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Why is our Original Gravity low?
When brewing from an extract kit we always seem to be low in the Original Gravity department. It's usually not a lot -- something like 1.055 instead of 1.060. What might be causing this to happen? Is ...
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recapping my bottles? Will it ruin the outcome of my beer?
I bottled my first batch of homebrew and didnt fill the bottles all the way. So the next day I opened the bottles and poured some more beer into them and recapped them.. I this going to mess up the ...
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Day 2 of Primary Fermentation of beer
Is this what my primary fermentation should look like after a day???
It looks like my yeast has been sitting on top of foam..
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What happens in the bottle?
I often drink a bottle 2 or 3 days after bottling, and then often every day or 2 after that, and it's sometimes quite amazing to see those "rough edges" getting smoothed out.
Can someone explain what ...
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How do you cool wort?
More specifically, what methods exist to cool your wort after the boil, and what are there respective pros/cons?
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Sanitation & Dry Hopping
Is there any risk of wort infection by not sanitizing hops before dry hopping?
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What is the best book for beginning home brewers?
What is the best book for beginning home brewers?
** Please post 1 book per post, then the resulting votes will show what most people consider to be the best book.
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Making a Yeast Starter
It seems that there are varying opinions about the size your starter should be. What is the basic rule-of-thumb for 5 and 10 gallon batches?
How much water should be used?
How much malt/malt extract ...
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Will scaling a recipe from 5 gallons to 1 gallon introduce significant differences?
Will scaling a recipe down to 1 gallon (i.e.: dividing the amount of each ingredient by 5) produce a pretty close approximation of the results of a full 5 gallon batch? Are there any additional ...
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Book for beginners
What book would you recommend for a beginner hoping to start with extract recipes or from an extract kit?
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Why is a carboy used for secondary fermentation?
It seems like you could a second bucket for the secondary fermentation. Is there any drawback to not using a carboy for this purpose?
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What is the best type of beer to brew for a beginner?
What is the best type of beer to brew for a beginner?
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What effects will the type of water have on beer?
For instance, will hard water really change the taste that much?
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Diluting beer after 11 hours of fermentation. What to expect?
Ended up with too high gravity wort. Since I was not prepared for this I didn't have enough sterile water to dilute the wort. I ended up pitching the yeast anyway and adding sterile water at 11 hours ...
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Aluminium boil pots: Heresy or not?
Are aluminium pots acceptable as boil vessels? They're cheap, but I've heard they can produce off-flavors. Any experiences with them?
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How much does heat affect beer?
What effects could heat have on beer and how long does it take? Is it ok to ship beer without an icepack during the summer? Can it survive the heat of a parked car for a few hours?
Someone out ...
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How do I decide if the beer is ready? Is my fermentation complete?
This is my first time brewing and I've followed the instructions from a kit. It says to leave the beer in the key for two weeks and its ready when it stops being cloudy. Its now been a little over ...
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What effect do different types of yeast have when creating a recipe?
What happens when you use different types of yeast? Does it change the flavor? I'm not talking about mixing different types of yeast in the same recipe.
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Pennies in the Boil
I've heard that adding cleaned pennies to the wort can help prevent boil-overs. I guess they could provide nucleation points- I dunno.
Any truth to this, or is it just an old wives' tail?
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What effect does cooling, then warming have on finished beer?
The common wisdom I have known is that cooling, warming, then cooling beer again would cause it to "skunk." I now know that skunky flavors are typically the result of exposure to light, not ...
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