A fermented beverage where the majority of the fermentable sugars are derived from malted grains via mashing.
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1answer
455 views
What does Irish Moss do?
I've heard that it helps clear the beer, but how does it do that, and how is it used? Further, are there any tradeoffs associated with using it?
9
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1answer
433 views
Is it possible to boil wort too quickly?
I recently picked up this burner and was excited to use it to bring my wort to a boil. I had it cranked up pretty high and it took about 15 minutes to bring 6 gallons of wort to a rolling boil in a ...
9
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1answer
310 views
What are the primary causes of Acetaldehyde?
I'm a bit confused about this.
In my own experience, I'm no longer experiencing acetaldehyde flavours in my beer after improving my aeration methods and at the same time starting to use yeast ...
8
votes
8answers
1k views
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?
8
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3answers
298 views
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2answers
544 views
Boiling with lid on or off?
In this answer it is mentioned that boiling with the lid on or off may make a difference in final gravity. Which do you recommend and why?
8
votes
2answers
4k views
Am I required to refrigerate bottles after bottling?
My instructions that came with my kit said that I should let the bottles sit for 3 days, then age in the fridge for 10 days. If I don't refrigerate, will I get bottle bombs?
Advice on forums and ...
8
votes
5answers
714 views
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 ...
8
votes
3answers
369 views
Suggestions for cheap recipes
I would like to create a recipe (or recipes) that is fairly cheap and will serve as a session beer that I can drink when I just want a beer in the evening, and I'm not particularly choosy about what ...
8
votes
5answers
696 views
How do you calculate a beer's nutrition facts?
How can I figure out a beer's nutrition facts when I've homebrewed?
It's not a sum of the ingredients any more, is it?
--EDIT--
So when I say "beer's nutrition facts" I means values like calories, ...
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votes
5answers
739 views
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 ...
8
votes
2answers
184 views
Fly Sparging: Can I start boiling straight away
I fly sparge directly into my boil kettle and in general I have the heat on while I'm doing this. When this was on my stove it wasn't powerful enough to get the water boiling before finishing the ...
8
votes
1answer
2k views
When brewing a chocolate stout, should the cacao nibs be added in the boil, the secondary, or both?
When using cacao nibs to brew a chocolate stout, should they be added in the boil (if so, when?), in the secondary fermenter, or both? Is there a better ingredient to add to produce the chocolate ...
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votes
4answers
3k views
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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2answers
463 views
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 ...
8
votes
2answers
307 views
At what point can a beer be called organic?
A lot of the homebrew I make is made with organic ingredients - organic grain and hops. However, I have never come across organic yeast (!?) or irish moss. Can I rightly call this beer organic, or ...
8
votes
3answers
705 views
Can glass carboy be used for both beer and wine making?
This last summer, my Dad showed my brother and I the process for making wine that he learned from his Dad. It was pretty simple and used a 5 or 6 gallon glass carboy. I've made a few batches of beer ...
8
votes
4answers
623 views
Steeping grain time
We are steeping 5# of grain. Is the time the grains should steep based on the weight? We were just going to do 30 mins. Is this the correct amount of time or should it be more or less? This is for an ...
8
votes
1answer
565 views
Cold Conditioning in carboy vs keg
I have a wheat and a golden ale, both in 5 gal carboys, that have been in secondary fermentation for 2 weeks. I was planning on letting them settle for another week and then transferring them to kegs ...
8
votes
2answers
617 views
Three-finger head but tastes flat?
I recently brewed a Belgian Wit extract kit. Bottle conditioned with 5 oz of priming sugar. I'm pretty happy with the taste. With a medium speed pour into a Pilsner glass, the beer develops a ...
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votes
1answer
1k views
How does malted wheat differ from malted barley?
Aside from the fact that they're two different types of grain, how do the two malted grains differ in terms of their effects in beer such as flavor, body, head, etc. when used as base malts?
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votes
2answers
402 views
Fruit Beer: When to rack to secondary?
Right now, I'm working on a peach wheat beer. I pitched about 5 days ago now, and the airlock stopped bubbling yesterday. I'm going to do a gravity reading later on today to see if it's finished. My ...
8
votes
4answers
442 views
How can I compare hop flavours quickly?
I want to try and acquaint myself with different hop flavours and brewing a few batches of beer can be quite time consuming (and wasteful if the results are no good).
How can I quickly (in say, a ...
8
votes
2answers
451 views
Is it okay to store cold beer at room temps after conditioning?
I brewed a nice batch of Black Cherry Ale, which has been bottle conditioning at 35F for about 5 weeks. I will need space in the fridge for a keg of Summer Ale in about two weeks.
My basement temps ...
8
votes
2answers
202 views
Differences in various Maltster's 2-Row
How much flavor variation exists for 2-row malted barley from different malsters? For example, how different is 2-row malt from Rahr, Briess, Canada Malting, Malteurop other than price?
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votes
2answers
1k views
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 ...
7
votes
4answers
6k views
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. ...
7
votes
4answers
711 views
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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votes
5answers
403 views
Critical Steps to follow for any homebrew beer recipe or process
I've got my second batch of homebrew fermenting, and in just two batches I've learned a lot the hard way (messed up batch priming, possibly under-aerated the wort, etc)
What steps are critical to any ...
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votes
2answers
2k views
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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votes
3answers
699 views
What should be done differently for high-gravity beers?
What, if anything, should you do differently when brewing a high-gravity beer?
7
votes
5answers
147 views
Hop variety resources
Are there any good resources for finding out which hop varieties have similar aroma, flavour and bittering potential. E.g. a place to lookup a hop could be substituted for another hop for bittering ...
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votes
8answers
1k views
What's the best way to rack beer off of fruit?
I recently brewed a 5.5 gallon batch of witbier. After primary, I bottled 3 gallons of it and racked the other 2.5 gallons into a 3 gallon carboy atop 24 ounces of raspberries.
After the secondary ...
7
votes
3answers
428 views
Bottling homebrew late
My guess is that my homebrew will be done fermenting while I am out of town. Is there any harmful effects if I don't bottle it until a few days after the fermentation process stops?
7
votes
2answers
519 views
Ever made a “hop tea” to balance an overly malty beer?
I brewed a golden ale that was severely under hopped. I called my LBHS and the told me to make a hop tea to add to the keg:
1 gallon of water
1 tbsp malt extract
2 oz fresh hops
boil for 60 minutes
...
7
votes
3answers
713 views
What about an Unfiltered IPA makes it unfiltered?
I recently tried an unfiltered IPA that was fantastic! I'm a newbie homebrewer and would like to take a shot at one. What makes an IPA unfiltered? Can I take any IPA recipe and modify it to be ...
7
votes
2answers
1k views
My beer tastes like green apples.
I brewed a blonde ale with extract a little over a month ago. I fermented in primary for three weeks and have been bottle-conditioning for two weeks. I didn't take an OG, but the final gravity ...
7
votes
4answers
878 views
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 ...
7
votes
3answers
455 views
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?
7
votes
2answers
92 views
Belgian Fruit Beer Expectations
I am about to try a Kreik beer. This is a step beyond a Lamic, and I am having trouble locating actual sour Morello cherries. Will any variety of a sour cherry get roughly equivalent results?
7
votes
2answers
461 views
What is the danger zone for overcarbonating and making bottle bombs?
Just curious how many volumes of CO2 most average beer bottles can hold. Is there a rough number where alarms should start going off?
Update -- I'm seeing in different carbonation calculators that ...
7
votes
4answers
361 views
Short boil and DMS
So I just had a small brewing mishap where I added too much hops. WAY too much. I somehow mistook my 2oz hop pellet bag for a 1oz bag and added 1.5ounces of chinook instead of .75 . This brought my ...
7
votes
1answer
196 views
What is the benefit to filtering beer?
I'm not a home-brewer, but this seems like a good place to ask the question.
why are many commercial beers filtered?
I prefer unfiltered beer and I am just curious to know why they filter it in the ...
7
votes
2answers
1k views
How to troubleshoot flat beer?
Since I started brewing in January, every single batch (6 so far) has come out flat. I've had a couple come good after a few months in the back of the garage but for the most part, it's all flat.
At ...
7
votes
2answers
111 views
Green wood in beer
I was wondering if I can make some post-christmas beer out of the christmas tree (Norway Spruce).
So my question is, does wood have to be dried in order to use it for flavoring or can I use green ...
7
votes
2answers
1k views
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 ...
7
votes
3answers
2k views
How much chocolate extract should I use?
The Young's Double Chocolate Stout clone recipe I'm about to rack to the secondary in two days calls for 0.33 ounces of chocolate extract. That's less than a tablespoon. The bottle of chocolate ...
7
votes
2answers
366 views
How long for a pellicle to drop when brewing lambic?
I made a saison earlier this summer. After primary fermentation was complete I took 3 gallons of it and added Wyeast Roeselare Blend. Two months later I added cherries and pecan chips. It formed a ...
7
votes
1answer
283 views
Can I make urwagwa?
Urwagwa is a popular beer in Rwanda made from bananas, and I'd like to brew some myself. The recipes and methods I've read online have some very traditional methods (e.g. Bury the bananas for a ...
7
votes
1answer
241 views
Victory v. Biscuit malt
Are there flavor differences between these two malts?
How can each be described?
I have used them both but often in complicated recipes, and never side by side for comparison.
How is each produced?
