That temperature climb you are seeing is normal. The more active the fermentation, the more temperature rise you will see. There are numerous ways to keep your fermentation temps down. The cheapest is called a swamp cooler. Basically put fermenter in a bucket of water. Add ice...

It looks cool. It's purple. My wife wants it!

You want to (but don't have to) add dry hops while the yeast are still active because the yeast will consume the oxygen introduced when you added the hops. Loose or bagged is completely personal choice.

I would clean and refill the airlock. What is in the airlock and the lid now will turn nasty and you don't want to risk that being sucked back into the fermenter. For dry-hopping. Just toss the hops in when scheduled and leave it all until the end. You won't get bitterness from dry hopping...

You know you are a home brewer when you set the house thermostat to make the yeast happy :)

Apparently ants really love wort soaked hop cones. I've spilled wort while brewing before but don't remember ever seeing this reaction.

I always drain my brew kettle through a double-mesh strainer to filter out hops and some trub. One of the methods I use to oxygenate my wort is to have some vertical separation between the kettle spout and the strainer. When the wort stream hits the strainer mesh it splashes quite a bit and...

I brewed @Hawkbox's Q2 brew today. I made it more of a Brewer's Friend brew by using some Sterling hops @Bulin's Milker Bucket Brews grew and sent me. Since Sterling is a child of Cascade (which is used in the stand hop) I figured it should pair nicely. I did a 45 minute hop stand between...

Bot: "Hey you guys remember when @Vallka stopped his mid-boil hopping?" Us: "Oh yeah, I wonder how that's going for him?" I guess bots can, on rare and accidental occasions, be useful :)

I've just started kegging and had the same question. I found websites that discuss different methods of force carbonating beer (Brewcrafter Burst Carbonation & Brulosophy Carbonation Methods ) but I don't remember finding anything listing a qualitative difference between the 3 force carbonation...

I have not brewed an NEIPA (so, those with experience please correct me) but 4 weeks fermentation does sound a bit long. I suspect NB is being over-cautious to avoid potential bottle bombs from bottling too early. I would shorten that to 3 weeks total. If you are bottling then 2 weeks bottle...

I think @Yontsey's experienced brewer friend will be the brew master and he will be the pupil. @Yontsey , once your friend is gone, then do as Ward suggests and focus on simple recipes at first. Then use what your friend taught you on more complicated recipes.

I agree with you, that looks like an infection. I think your idea of getting a new bucket is an excellent one. It's easy to scratch the inside of a plastic bucket and once scratched bacteria have a place to hide that you cannot ever clean and sanitize properly. Glass carboys are very...

WATER REQUIREMENTS: Strike water volume at mash thickness of 1.5 qt/lb, 1.08gal (4.3qt) - What exactly is this? (qt/lb gave me nothing on google) Mash thickness is measured in qt/lb (L/kg) and is the ratio of water to grain. In this example 1.5 quarts of strike water per pound of grain...

Ben, you continue to be an inspiration to me in the way you tackle life's problems! First you find out you have Celiac's disease. Instead of giving up, you plow head-first into the almost uncharted territory of malting your own non-gluten grains. Now a bigger problem has come up and you do...

You could also subscribe to homebrewer's magazines. Brew Your Own (byo.com) and Zymurgy (homebrewersassociation.org) are the two that I subscribe to. I believe both have Spanish language versions.

Your research will pretty much decide whether you buy & fill or rent & exchange. For me both places I checked did refills but not exchanges. So, I bought a 5 lb CO2 cylinder. Since refilling/exchanging an empty tank sounds rather inconvenient for you, you may want to opt for a larger tank...

Glad everything went well Craig!

Plastic fermentation buckets are very prone to leaking CO2. So, don't worry if you don't see airlock activity. But you should see a temperature rise when fermentation is active. Plus you should see kreuzen on top during active fermentation or a ring around the outside if active fermentation...

@Craigerrr, how close were you to the total eclipse path? Looks like you were pretty close. We were at 90% coverage. It was amazing how bright it still was with only 10% of the sun showing. It did get dim, but not dark. It got windy and the temperature dropped. I had forgotten about that...