re: Homebrewing: In-Process Thread

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I really think it could be at least in part to 74-76 degree fermentation.

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That's a little higher than I normally ferment my amber ales...

I fermented my last amber in the mid/upper 60s. Once the fermentation slowed down I let the temperature rise to the low 70s for a diacetyl rest.

S-05...

I know it's too hot, but it's been easy. My keggerator (really a box freezer with control unit) is still at my old place but I need to pick it up and use it in fermentation. I've been brewing at least a batch a week and I don't wanna ruin too much... haha

About to get started here at the "brewery"

I ended up with 7.5 gallons of sugar tea and plan to boil that down to about 6 gallons of wort.

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I knew I shouldn't have used the aluminum stock pot

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I used to use an aluminum pot when i did extract brews. Never had an off taste. That's weird.

For All-Grain, you need to get yourself a mash tun (i use the 2 10 gallon water cooler method. one mash tun, one sparge tank). It's a little pricey, but it's worth it to me. You're brew days will double, but you can control your final product better.

Just remember, when you start all-grain, it's really not as hard as it sounds when you read about it.

Basically you take your grains, soak them in hot water (150-154 depending on beer type) for an hour. Then you drain out your wort, and continue on with your boiling the word as you would normally do. Once you do a few batches, you'll learn some tricks and how to tailor your beer more.

Extract. I think it got to hot. The pot was way to big for te 2.5 gallons I cooked. The 2.5 gallons was only about 3-4 inches deep. I know it was a rookie mistake..

Eta this is an older pot, got it from my wife's paw paw

I would blame the malt extract before the pot, especially if that extract came from a can.

In my experience the biggest problem with liquid extract is you don't know how fresh it is and how it was stored. You can make really good beer from fresh properly handled LME, but old stuff will give you all sorts of nasty flavors.

Oh and on your next batch I'd suggest doing a full boil instead of just 2.5 gallons. It will definitely help your final results.

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By full boil do you mean boil what ever I want my batch size to be(5 gallons)

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Exactly, just remember that you are going to boil off some of the volume so you'll probably want to start with between 5.5 and 6 gallons.

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Exactly, just remember that you are going to boil off some of the volume so you'll probably want to start with between 5.5 and 6 gallons.

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Yeah, for my system, i usually try to collect around 6.5 gallons, and shoot for just a little over 5 gallons of wort.

Nice, what ya brewing?

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One more weekday of paternity leave means one more brew day.

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Cool...

I'd like to try that one. Going to brew twice this weekend. RyePA and TropicALE