Graham

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Programmer Analyst. Background in web design and usability. Currently working with C#.NET & EF4.

	4,480 reputation	bio	website	grahampeel.com	visits	member for	3 years, 4 months
413 badges		location			seen	16 hours ago

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May 15	comment	My bottles are Conditioning underwater. Why are there bubbles on the caps on day 2 but not day 0 through 1? Yeah it could affect the flavor, or perhaps trigger a miniscule leak that lets the C02 out over time. I'd take them out the water ASAP, and dry them off good. Maybe leave them out on the kitchen table overnight to make sure they air dry. Better safe than sorry.
May 15	comment	My bottles are Conditioning underwater. Why are there bubbles on the caps on day 2 but not day 0 through 1? Great answer about the nucleation points! Makes sense to me. Also, keeping the bottles in water is surely going to increase the risk of the caps rusting.
May 14	comment	Fitering BIAB wort Its hard to say. I mentioned the Irish Moss because it can't hurt. Actually a better idea might be to rack the wort into a temporary carboy for about 2-3 hours. Let it settle, then transfer the wort into the primary fermentor and leave behind whatever is at the bottom inch or two. That should cut down on that stuff getting into the primary.
May 13	comment	Unusual flavourings I sampled a Basil Cucumber Saison a friend once made. Was pretty tasty.
May 13	comment	Fruit Flies in Airlock. How can I Test if Mead is Okay? As a precaution right now, i would add that he should take off that airlock and sanitize it really, really well before returning it to the bung. And be sure to cover the bung hole (snicker snicker) with some tinfoil while its being cleaned, if there are fruit flies hanging around!
May 13	comment	Fruit Flies in Airlock. How can I Test if Mead is Okay? Your airlock looks fine in the photos, so I don't think you damaged it. Not sure what the 'pop' you heard was.
May 13	comment	Fitering BIAB wort Filtering after the chill sounds like a pain. I'd do things like adding the Irish Moss, or using a finer bag for mashing, before I attempted to do sanitized filtering. Are you familiar with the concept of a "Hop Back"? This technique uses a vessel filled with hops to strain out material like pellet hops before the wort enters a counter flow chiller. Might be worth looking into as well.
May 9	comment	Can you mash for too long? Or, if it smells bad, let it go another day and then call it a Berlinerweisse! No joke, these beers are often made with a 2-3 day old 'sour mash'. You need a blanket of C02 in the mashtun to keep the nasty bugs out, but the corn/vomit smell does boil away completely when done properly.
May 9	comment	Keeping pressure in secondary keg Well, I still think calling it "a good first barrel" and saying it has an "easy pour tap" are indications that the manufacturer intents it to be a serving vessel. You certainly can just use it for a secondary if you want a normal keg, but you need to be able to disassemble that tap at the bottom completely, like the spigot in a bottling bucket, to ensure sanitation.
May 6	comment	Using pine in beer As someone who's been covered in sticky pine sap many times, I winced when I read this title. I suspect Denny is correct in that pine would make the beer taste like turpentine, or perhaps like something gawd-awful from your great-grandma's medicine cabinet.
May 1	comment	How to train my nose for hop aromas? I've got a Munich + Spalt Smash Ale that's just about ready to keg now (you could call it an Amber, I guess). Vienna + Northern Brewer is a good one I've done before too.
Apr 30	comment	How to train my nose for hop aromas? One caveat I learned, after having struggled with this myself, is that these flavors/aromas are described by the thing that they are CLOSEST to, but often times are not that exact aroma. So when we say a hop smells "flowery", (like EKG for example), its not REALLY the exact smell of flowers, its just that that's our closest approximation, and some are closer to the real thing than others. Sometimes its easier to compare two hop flavors side by side (EKG vs Cascade, for example) to really get a sense of why we call one "flowery" and one "citrusy".
Apr 29	comment	How to prevent solventy/overly alcoholic flavors? All of this is solid. In addition, you really need to oxygenate the hell out of a beer that big. I'd suggest 3 packets of something neutral, like US-05, with plenty of oxygen at pitching.
Apr 29	comment	How to prevent solventy/overly alcoholic flavors? How old are these beers when you start drinking them? Are they bottled? You mention a keg for secondary, but its unclear how quickly you are drinking them after that. I would assume a 12% stout would take no less than 6-7 months of conditioning to be palatable.
Apr 29	comment	Gravity going down during boil. How can it happen? Occam's Razor would probably be applied here to say that you jotted down the numbers in the wrong order, and it was actually 1.058 pre-boil and 1.068 post-boil ;)
Apr 29	comment	Most common and obvious off-flavours for homebrewers Yeah, the bottom of my first brew kettle was routinely covered in a layer of dark brown/black caramel by the end of the boil until I heard about this tip.
Apr 26	comment	My first Porter. Should I add any calcium chloride chalk to my bottled water before mashing? Yeah adding the dark grains right at the end of the mash is pretty much the same as technique I describe, so you should be fine with that. In both cases, the dark stuff won't impact your main mash pH at all. By adding them before the vorlauf, you are dropping your sparge pH by a tiny bit, but that's usually helpful anyway.
Apr 24	comment	Most common and obvious off-flavours for homebrewers A good rule of thumb when adding extract is to take the kettle off the heat entirely, then pour in the extract, then mix it up really well before returning it to the heat.
Apr 24	comment	Most common and obvious off-flavours for homebrewers @C4H5As The fineness of the crush won't cause this problem alone. Brew In a Baggers double crush everything into a powder as standard practice.
Apr 22	comment	Airlock: vodka, water, or "Does the quality of the vodka count?" - Yes, but only for making Lambics, in which case you MUST use the "Grey Geuze" brand vodka.