I did an impromptu mash yesterday evening with the boil early this morning. I think I finished mashing by 10pm and after a short pasteauristion I let it sit in the kettle until 7am today, when I started the boil. Temperature of the wort was down to something like 45C (110F) at that time. It's...

I've been bottling all my beers so far and my usual process lately has been transfering the beer from the fermentor to a "bottling bucket" (just another fermenting vessle actually). I add priming solution to the bottling bucket, transfer the beer to this bucket via a spigot and tube from the...

I brewed an english IPA this morning and most things felt pretty good up until I took a OG sample. It was way off, estimated OG was 1.054 but it landed on 1.042 :eek: So it's going to be a pretty low ABV IPA and that's ok with me, doesn't bother me too much even if I'm wondering what went...

I've been reading how people taste their beer when for instance taking gravity samples from the fermentor, to know if it's going to be a nice beer or not. I've been reading comments like "wow tastes great", "this is going to be super" etc. I've seen threads about people taking tasting samples to...

Was reading another thread with sort of similar question, regarding saving a wort made with DME, and it made me thinking about something I've been pondering a few times. Would it be bad practice to mash in the morning, then let it rest (cold) for the day (~8 to 10 hours) and do the boil etc...

...will that be a good idea? I'm going to try make it simple on my next brew, an IPA with Maris Otter + amarillo, and either US-05 or BRY-97. Been googling some and I don't see anyone saying they hate that combo at least. What would a good hop schedule be? I want some dry hopping but I don't...

I'm about to brew this weekend and for that I've tried to make a starter for the first time. Yeast was a bit old, Nov 28, and needed a starter according to the yeast/pitch calculator. I only made a small starter, 0.5 liter (=0.13 gallons as I understand it) since that was the size of the flask I...

For a low ABV beer, what's the best technique for brewing a low alcohol beer regarding mash temperature and yeast attenuation? Is it something people consider when brewing low ABV? I wouldn't think it's just about cutting down on the grain bill? With my limited knowledge my first thought were...

Yesterday I brewed an English Bitter, which I mentioned here, and the first one since I decided to make a few changes on my brewing procedure (such as; different water, better check of temperature for both mashing and fermentation) The brew itself went pretty smoothly and for the first time I...

Is it normal for hydrometer to need "recalibrating" over time? I've noticed mine has been drifting from when I used it first, in a 20 degrees Celsius water it showed something like 1.006.... but when I'm checking it now it's close to 1.000

For my next brew, of a british bitter, I'm thinking of using this yeast...Wyeast 1968. Considering my earlier problems, most noticable with the british beers (mentioned here), I want to go with some other yeast than I've used on those. I been reading up some on that yeast, and some other british...

I think I'm in need of some hugging, or some encouragment....or advice at least. I've done 6 beers so far, started in late October last year, and I'm not the happy brewer I hoped to be. To be honest, the five beers I've been able to taste is more or less a disapointment so far. There has to be...

I been correcting some of my to-be-brewed-recipes since I learned about the bitterness ratio not too long ago. One of my recipes was way out of chart and I had to look at the original recipe to see where I typed wrong, but it seems like I hadn't. I did scale the recipe slightly, the original was...

I were reading howtobrew and got into a section about how to increase the body with oatmeal, amongst other ways. But what's the difference in using oatmeal and oat malt? I guess when it says oatmeal it literaly means the stuff you might eat for breakfast? Or do they mean some sort of oat malt...

This is a question that has been asked over and over, I'm aware of that...fermentation time. I have this brown ale in my fermenting bucket and it's been there for 9 days now. I took a gravity reading on saturday and it showed 1.009, and the reading today (monday) still shows 1.009. So, I guess...

...or something like that. Is it a bad idea to try to get two types of beers from one mash? I'm thinking, make one mash...and split in half and make two boils, different types, like one IPA and one ESB. Doesn't seem like impossible to me as a newbie, as long as I use a good generic base of...

I was looking for a low alcohol IPA and there is quite a few of them when I'm browsing the recipes. Is there an IPA in particular anyone can recommend? And generally speaking, how do one "construct" a low ABV beer? Just reducing the grain bill? Wouldn't that result in a rather boring beer?

I found a recipe for a ESB I like to brew next, but I also have a couple of malts at home I need to use before it gets old...I guess. The recipe says 1.6 kg American - Pale 2-Row 37 1.8 63.7% 0.6 kg American - Pale 2-Row - Toasted 33 30 23.9% 0.2 kg American - Caramel / Crystal 60L 34 60 8%...

Since I'm too new of a brewer I haven't been able to find this out by experience, so maybe someone could help me out... Adding a small amount (1% or so) of a dark malt, like chocolate, how much does that affect taste? Let's say I'm going to make an IPA but want to make it a bit darker, but not...

Been looking at the priming calculator and I got a couple of question on this topic. If cold crashing, it says "if you cold crash for a very long time"....what is a "very long time" in this context? After priming (bottles), is there bad/good temperatures for storing the beer waiting for the...