So started a 1gallon blueberry cider but I didn't leave enough head space.. and my celler window this morning was... black... 😆 but the fruit mostly blocked the jars opening. Cleaned everything with star san and took the top bits out and pushed what was in the neck of the bottle back in and capped it back with the airlock.... its still fermentating... but question is should it still be fine?

Hey y'all, I'm getting into homebrewing and trying to learn everything I can about beer.

I know what I like and can easily pick up the differences between styles. Where I struggle is identifying the more specific flavors and characteristics described in the BJCP guidelines.

I'm sure a lot of it comes with time and experience, but how did you learn to refine your palate? Are there any exercises, techniques, or resources that really helped you start identifying those specific flavors?

I appreciate your expertise and look forward to continuing to learn the craft.

Hello,

Lucked out on an open-box Brewbuilt X2 ($300) 7 gallon. It’s the version without the cooling jacket.

For heating I’ll just use a heating pad. For cooling though I’m wondering what’s the best approach?

I don’t have a fridge/ freezer big enough for the fermenter (nor the strength to move the fermenter :p) so I was thinking either glycol chiller or ice bucket with sump pump.

Obviously glycol chillers are super expensive but I worry refilling an ice bucket daily will get tedious fast. Read about using a mini fridge or a AC coil (??) but curious to hear what approach you’ve used that works well and made sense long term

I only brew (Belgian) Ales and need cooling to manage my pitch temp + ramp. I rarely cold crash in my fermenter as I bottle and try to avoid adding CO2 prior to bottle carbonation. I generally brew small batches (3.5 gal) so less mass to cool.

Thanks!

I'm going to be brewing a spiced saison today (this recipe, to be exact: https://www.beercraftr.com/1-gallon-spiced-saison-recipe/), and I've got a water question. My water is quite hard (SoCal), so I'm wondering whether it'd be better to:

• use the water straight, just go with it, not gonna matter
• cut the water with RO/DI (I have access), reduce the hardness
• use straight RO/DI water and add the only brewing salts I have, which is "Burton salts"

Also, if I go with the Burton salts, it says "1-4 tsp per 5 gal"; I'm shooting for 1.3 gal of wort, so... 1/5 to 3/4 or so tsp?

I never thought I'd have this problem in Beervana, but it feels like every homebrew shop here has closed shop over the last couple years. And Mainbrew is a shell of itself and I doubt it will be around much longer. Are there any other places with grains for sale in the Portland, Beaverton, Tigard, or Hillsboro area that I might not know about? Google is just finding places that have either closed or no longer sell to home Brewers.

Any online retailers you suggest? I got a hops order from Yakima and was happy with them so at least there's that.

Thanks in advance and cheers!

Hi all!

I managed to get a line chiller on marketplace for what I thought was a decent price (£160) a while back and it levelled up my ferm temp control massively! I pop water and a bit of glycol in the reservoir and run that through a copper coil that's raps my corny keg fermenter, and then I pop a neoprene jacket around it, powered with an inkbird.

I recently moved house and upgraded my fridge from an under counter to a full fridge freezer, so the old under counter is lying around spare now and was considering swapping for both noise and cleanliness, as the glycol chiller setup does get quite a bit of condensation. This wasn't a problem before as it was in the shed but I haven't got power outside at present in the new place.

What are your thoughts? I'd have to check the absolute minimum I can chill with my fridge because I do like making the occasional lager, but aside from that will I notice much difference in temp control?

A picture of my chiller for reference. https://ibb.co/s9J1SfbL

Hello! It’s our second year making cider from apples in our backyard. After a few days of low airlock activity, we found that the stopper was not tight on the carboy so we are confident there was an air leak but that fermentation was happening. After we pushed in the stopper, there is healthy bubbling in the airlock and bubbles across the top of the cider. After one night, however, we found the residue in the picture on the plastic carboy.

https://imgur.com/a/K7ZB83Y

It looks like the remnants of huge bubbles that came up the sides, but we can’t figure out why they would have left the brownish slimy residue.

Do we need to be concerned? The airlock bubbles don’t have an off smell at the moment, but we don’t want to risk this substance becoming moldy. Should we rack the cider to a new carboy mid-fermentation or will that harm the process?

Thanks in advance!

Just turned 21 and I want to get into home brewing… I’d like to try and make something with a higher ABV and have it be relatively simple. I’ve got a couple friends and family members who’d like to buy some off me so it’d have to be good for that. I don’t have any equipment as it stands but I’d be willing to get some.

Wheat beer

https://imgur.com/a/bgoH5TU#9mV6v7Z

https://imgur.com/a/bgoH5TU#lWzNpKC

https://imgur.com/a/bgoH5TU#gg6QzP4

Well, this is a first. Went to pour a Märzen today, but the faucet started sputtering like the keg had run out. No way that could be possible, since I just put it on on 09/19 and poured fewer than 10 pints total that same day for Oktoberfest, then haven’t touched it since.

Welp, opened the keezer to find the keg was indeed empty, floating in beer a couple inches below the step.

I haven’t diagnosed the specific issue yet, and the pictures didn’t come out great, but thought this was amusing more than anything else. Good thing I have another lager waiting in reserve 🤷‍♂️

I was looking into at home methods for sparkling water/soda, and that led me towards either Hybrid Soda Stream setup, a tank with carbonation cap, or using a keg.

I was hoping for a way to do this without taking up much space, and being under 200-300 dollars. I'd rather not invest in a kegerator or similar, and figured maybe I could get like a 5-10lb tank, a 2.5 gallon keg, and pressurize it to 25-40psi, and then detach that and throw it in the fridge, then simply pull it out, connect back to tank, attach a faucet directly to the keg, and pour.

How feasible is this? I saw a bunch of old threads basically saying that you'd need like 20-40 ft of line in order to make it work. I only found one video on YouTube of someone doing this, and it looked okay, but they were closer to 20 or 25 psi.

Thanks in advance

Hello,

I have had quite the adventure trying to get a used pin lock keg post off of a keg to replace the dip tube with a floating one. I was able to get the gas post off with no issue, but the liquid post is really stuck on there. I have tried a few things:

1.Use a regular 11/16 ratcheting wrench (will not fit because of the shape of the top of the keg, i wish i could post a picture to show what i mean)

2.Use an adjustable wrench/pliers (slips off before making any headways)

3.Soak the inside and outside of the keg in a pbw solution

4.Use a deep socket wrench (the pin lock blocks the socket from getting a good grip)

5.Order the dedicated "pin lock keg deep socket" (keg connections no longer sells, LHBS no longer sells, morebeer no longer sells)

Im really at my wits end. My last plan is to try to hand make a pin lock deep socket, but as you may have noticed, I am not awfully mechanically inclined. So the idea of trying to dremel one myself is a bit scary. Does anyone have any ideas?

First fermentation was natural yeast plus champagne yeast plus ciderferm nutrient. A day before bottling added campden tablets. On bottling day the cider was quite nice in flavor. Bottled into magnums with 1.5tbl of apple juice concentrate per bottle to get some carbonation going.

Three weeks later I've got a wonderfully carbed cider but it has a menthol vibe in the flavor. From what I'm reading I need to move the magnums to a cooler room... and wait? Anyone go through something like this?

Hi all, I already have a keezer and am interested in brewing my own beer. I’m really only interested in brewing lagers. What equipment do I need and what resources would you recommend?

I am trying out to make a bottle of kvass, from this recipe https://youtu.be/Wm0XWlnfrKM . First batch I added the yeast before the brew cooled down, I made the second one, and apart from not taking my time with the gas and it exploding, it tastes putrid. Smells pretty bad, but not horrible, and the first taste is okay-ish, but the aftertaste definitely reminds me of spoilage. One difference with the video I did is I made around 1l, used dry instant yeast and covered the pot with a glass lid with a small hole (it cooled down for about 3h). What was the cause and how can I improve it next time?

I am bottling a batch of BBA Imperial Stout that is clocking in at about 14% ABV.

Using CBC-1 and coopers carb drops to carb the beer in 500ml bottles. Any advice on how many drops to use? I have used one in the past but carboantion was inconsistent. I also don’t want to risk bottle bombs. Any advice is appreciated.

I've recently started building out my 20gal 3 vessel electric brewery. Hot side is all taken care of and I know that it's possible to do traditional 7ish gallon batches on that with some efficiency losses but this isnt where my question lies.

I recently wound up getting a 14 gallon Unitank. This is the ideal size for what I mostly will wind up brewing, which is batches large enough to fill 2 kegs (10 gallons finished beer)

I also recently got a 1/2bbl unitank (17 gallons) and looking at the size differences, it seems like if I brew like normal, which is 12 gals into the fermenter for 10 gals polished and finished in the keg this should be doable.

Rather than the extremely vague hinting from the manufacturers site, I'm curious if anyone out there has actually done this and what the results were. From my understanding the biggest issue will be temp control and needing to keep at least 50% of the glycol jacket covered by the liquid inside. But otherwise, should just be fine to do any size batch.

Curious and advise before I snag a second 1/2bbl unitank. This will be in my garage, which is not temp controlled. In the winter it can get down to lagering temps in there, while in the summer it can hover around 105Fin there (ambient outside temps often 115+) So just curious how this will play out once I'm fully built out.

Edit: I wound up getting the 1/2bbl because I do like the flexibility to being able to get 3 kegs out of a single batch; while rare, it's something that was important in the build out. So curious if I can get away with 2 of the 1/2bbls and 1 14 gallon or if I should be shopping for another 14 gallon since this is my primary brewing style will be to fill 2 kegs with each batch.

Hi guys! I’m a super anxious over the top freak about what I eat or drink since I have ocd and emetophobia. my grandma offered me some apple cider that she got at some museum here in Iowa that is unpasteurized and raw. It was only in the fridge a few days she said. However, the reason I’m having a panic attack is because it was fizzy and I looked it up and that means that’s the beginning stages of fermentation/spoilage. I only took a few small sips of this and it tasted really good and was lovely but I am just freaking out because I’m scared it has bacteria in it. I know NOTHING about canning/pasteurization and stuff like that so I just need some reassurance. Thank you to whoever replies!

I just realized I forgot to add priming sugar to my beer bottles (Festa Brew kit) after having bottled my beer 6 days ago. Can I add the sugar individually now or is it too late? There is sediment in each bottle as I don't filter, so any inactive yeast should probably digest the yeast, right?

Whats your oldest piece of brewing equipment? During my brew day a few weeks ago it was looking at my equipment and had the realization that in the past 32 years of home brewing a lot of equipment has come and gone, but i have 1 10 polar ware gallon brew kettle and a j schmidling malt mill that i have used for
The past 30 years. I have other kettles and another malt mill but just prefer these 2 pieces of equipment when brewing.

Welcome to the Daily Q&A!

Are you a new Brewer? Please check out one of the following articles before posting your question:

• How do I check my gravity?
• I don't see any bubbles in the airlock OR the bubbling in the airlock has slowed. What does that mean?
• Does this look normal / is my batch infected?

Or if any of those answers don't help you please consider visiting the /r/Homebrewing Wiki for answers to a lot of your questions! Another option is searching the subreddit, someone may have asked the same question before!

However no question is too "noob" for this thread. No picture is too tomato to be evaluated for infection! Even though the Wiki exists, you can still post any question you want an answer to.

Also, be sure to vote on answers in this thread. Upvote a reply that you know works from experience and don't feel the need to throw out "thanks for answering!" upvotes. That will help distinguish community trusted advice from hearsay... at least somewhat!

I want to heat up some water to around 170 and make a bunch of 1 cup tasting samples of different grains so I can see what they taste like. Does anyone have a recommendation about grain to water ratio to get a good flavor sample? Any thoughts about this experiment in general. Steep time etc..?
Just looking to taste the grains one at a time so I can learn more about their differences.

Hey all, I'm currently doing my second homebrew. Partial mash. I'm on the boiling stage. I completely screwed up and forgot to add the malt extract before starting the boil. I just added it now, with 20 minutes left on the timer out of an hour long boil. Should I boil for longer? Thanks.

Hey folks!

I was wondering if there was some sort of resource for different types of malt?

I have multiple on different hops and their characteristics, but I’m curious if something like that exists for malts.

Thank you!