Guys I am curious as to what name brand German malts are the freshest and offer the best character for a kölsch specifically. I had a judge at competition say that one of my beers tasted like it was made from old ingredients. I do crush my own just prior to mashing.

A follow up to this is that I received many compliments on adding the Vienna malt.

Thanks guys. I am leaning toward Vienna. We will see. I want to taste a little more malt in this one.

I am brewing my second blonde AG. I would like more of a bready taste to the beer by adding a small amount of Vienna or Munich without increasing the ABV. I am not sure which one. How do they differ in flavor?

Thank you!

I ferment in glass carboys. Generally primary completes for me in about a week and the beer reaches it's final gravity. I do not rack to secondary unless I am dry hopping. My question is how do you know when the conditioning phase is complete and the beer is ready to keg/carbonate? Can you...

This is my second AG brew. I did a belgian wit with an adjunct mash. Most things turned out well but I would like to know what happened here. I had a pre boil volume of 8.2 gal with a gravity of 1.041. I was shooting for a 90 minute boil but cut it off at 70 minutes because I hit my final...

Thanks an oversight on my part. ;)

I don't think this is in the table yet. FYI if i missed it...sorry. Acidulated Malt PPG ? L 1.8 Mike K

I am making Jamil's wit. He calls for the protein rest, others say its not necessary. It is possible to step to conversion with a decoction without adding additional water according to JP. Or just do a single infusion and be done...I haven't decided ;)

This is my 1st step mash so I would like to pick some brains about the mash calculator. I am mashing 12.4 lbs of grain and want to end up with a pre boil volume around 8 Gallons. I would like to do a protein rest at 122, sacc at 154 and mash out at 180. Quick water says i need 41 total quarts...

Thanks Larry for answering my questions this evening!

Ok so 21.6 Qts sacc rest it says on the calculator. On the mash out it says 10.5 Qts additional water boiling. That leaves me short 7.5 Qts according to my needs on quick water. (Goal is 7 gal pre-boil) Should the shortage be added to mash out in cooler or added directly to kettle depending...

Thanks that was a big help! I needed to adjust my brew settings and check the quick water tab. Now my strike volume works out. :)

This is my 1st all grain brew. I want to end up with 7 gallons pre-boil to end up with 6 gal. of wort. My target gravity is 1.066. I am mashing in a 10 gallon cooler. I am batch sparging with sac rest at 152 F and mashing out at 170 F. I scaled up the NB Dead Ringer IPA to 6 gallons and...

I heard on Brew Strong that a drop of foam control in the 2L flask at boil really helps manage the boil over. I tried it and it works. It also controls the foaming during fermentation.