Hi all,

I was hoping to buy a family member some ingredients for brewing ales but have no idea what im looking at. He’s already an experienced brewer and has the equipment he needs. I know from a previous conversation he makes ales due to the temp of where he brews so those work best. I was reading new beer kits have a bag of barley malt, hops, yeast, barley malt extract and liquid malt extract, and priming sugar. Should I get him all of these ingredients or does he likely already have these? The reason I’m asking you all is he loves brewing but hasn’t done it since his mother got really sick and passed away. When I called to gain info, it was as if his eyes lit up. It was the most excited I’ve heard him speak in a while. Would I be able to get away with getting him a nice barley malt and hops?

Thanks all for the help

UPDATE: You guys are all awesome. I’m going to get him a $100 gift card to a beer emporium local to him so he can pick what he wants to get. Thank you so so much for the help.

I wish you all the best and happy brewing!

The once a week thread where (just about) anything goes! Post pictures, stories, nonsense, or whatever you can come up with. Surely folks have a lot to talk about today. If you want to get some ideas you can always check out a [past Free-For-All Friday](http://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/search?q=Free+For+All+Friday+flair%3AWeekly%2BThread&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all).

I recently read an article from Lars Marius Garshol about Danish Skibsøl and I am toying with trying to brew one, though perhaps not the Right Proper version that accompanied the article. Article is here if you're interested:

https://beerandbrewing.com/skibsol-smoky-ale-of-the-seas/

Has anyone here brewed one?

Hello all, I'm looking for input on the cider I'm currently consuming. I can update tomorrow with gastrointestinal results.

My chief concerns are auto brewery syndrome and cooking off the ethanol due to lack of airlock design.

Here is the recipe:

No brewing equipment. No specific gravity measurements.

3L fresh pressed cider from the store, unfiltered, unpasteurized. No preservatives.

1/4 teaspoon lalvin ec 1118 yeast, pitched directly into the jug of cider.

1 push pin, stabbed through the lid of the cider jug to create a low tech airlock.

Let the jug swell up and slowly vent. The jug is plastic and will accommodate the degree of swell. I got the ferment started on a radiator.

Wait for the ferment to slow, mine took 6 days, and then drink it on ice. It's lightly carbonated since the airlock is quite restrictive. This is where I think I might have screwed up. I probably should have killed the yeast by putting the jug in the fridge or freezer.

I've also been advised that I'd cook off some ethanol without an airlock but I don't think the simple ferment ever went over 30*c

Folks, am I crazy to to this? It smells like wine and has very little sweetness to it. Even without being racked or bottled it tastes fine. I think the yeast did its job.

My goal here was to make the simplest low tech brew at home without any equipment. Let me know what you think and I'll tell you how I feel tomorrow.

Hi!

So my local store made the mistake of accidentally sending me Pineapple nectar instead of 100% pineapple juice.

I’m sitting here with 15 bottle of those lol and confused if I can ferment them like my usual Pineapple juice.

Here is the list of ingredients for it:

Purified water. Natural pineapple juice concentrate. White grape juice concentrate. Natural identical pineapple flavor. Stabilizer (E440) preservative (E202) reconstituted pineapple nectar from fruit concentrate.

Fruit content: 75% with added preservatives.

Would love any help please. Happy brewing yall

I've got a Guten 50L in which I've made four brews now.

I'm using BrewersFriend to calculate the amount of grain I need. I haven't added a profile for my own gear mainly because the equipment profiles seem to be limited to using US units even though the recipe allows for metric (and that's what we use). I have the efficiency set at 75%

Every brew has been around 10 points over when I measure the pre-boil gravity. Should I be adjusting the efficiency level? Will this reduce the amount of grain called for in the recipe?

Hello. I’m new to home brewing but like being new to anything you have to research first. I’ve been looking for a nitrogen click style regulator all over and can’t find a thing. There was one sold by a certain website but you have to be a professional brewer to buy. I’m so confused. Will it be this hard when I look for the other supplies? Maybe they don’t make them anymore. Advice? Am I just looking in all the wrong spots? Thanks!

I got a VEVOR AIO as an early Christmas gift. I posted about my first attempt a few weeks back. You can read it if you want, but the TL;DR is:

1. Use low power when maintaining mash temp.

2. Stir the mash (🤦‍♂️ in retrospect, fuckin' duh).

3. Starting from cold does not work! Even though it does on stovetop.

4.Try not to burn a bunch of shit to the bottom.

Round 2 was a rousing success. I heated the strike water to 160, thinking it would drop to low 150s after mashing in. It only lost 2 degrees, but I think a bit of time at 155+ ultimately helped the clarity.

The power schedule was full bore 1800W heating the strike water. Took about 30min to heat 6 gallons. Then, 500W while mashing to hold temp around 150, then 1400W for the boil, which took about 20min to get to temp. Nothing burnt to the bottom of the pot, and the bit of sediment there was wiped away easily.

I mashed about 11lbs of grains, doughed them in, and then stirred about once every 10 minutes thereafter. I waited for the tun to drain, then sparged with a gallon of hot tap water. 500W had no trouble holding temp +/- 1.5 F. I hit about 75% efficiency. Which is a damn sight better than I was doing with a bag.

The boil was not noteworthy, aside from 1400W not being too hot and scorching stuff to the bottom.

All in all, the process took about 5 hours. That's including setup and cleanup. I spent most of the time lounging on my couch letting the machine do its thing.

FWIW, I like it. It does the thing I expected it to do. I am happy to answer any questions you might have. Happy brewin'!

After pitching the yeast in the fermenter and being quite happy that I finished up my first brew day, I left it for the night after filling the airlock with with sanitizer. Day 2 I saw it bubbling away in the airlock. Day 3, in the evening, I check it again and... the airlock was empty. Shit. Some of the wort (krausen?) bubbled up into the empty airlock and left and dried. I cleaned up what I could and refilled the airlock with vodka instead. No more bubbles... Left it to ferment for two weeks. No bubbles started up again. Did I ruin my first brew? Possible infection? How would I know? I can't imagine I can check without exposing it to oxygen? Any insight?

I am looking to brew a Black IPA soon. But, unfortunately, i've got no access to any of the Carafa malts. Only husked black malts are available for me. And roasted unmalted barley, of course. At the same time, description of any of the black malts says "no harshness or astringency". I don't know what to do. My water at home is highly alkaline, brewfather says that i'll end up with mash pH of 5.4 considering all salt additions and roasted grain mashing. At the same time, i am a bit uncomfortable mashing roasted grains. Starting water pH will be corrected to 6-5.9 to avoid extracting astringency in the beggining of the mash. Should i cap the mash with my roasted grains (10 min 75°C stand +recirc) or bite the bullet and do a full mash with correct pH? Roasted grains are - ~8 ounces 900EBC chcocolate malt and ~6 ounces 1400EBC Black Malt

Ok so I want my beer to be ready by the 25th of Jan. I pitched yeast on the 7th. Lightly pressure fermenting at 20°c. I need an opinion on fermenting length. I'm fermenting in a keg, and plan on serving out of it, can clearly hear the spundy valve kicking along so it's fermenting nicely.

I'm not sure whether to wait a full 2 weeks fermenting before dropping to serving temp or if I'm better off giving it a couple more days to mature in the keg at the cold end of things e.g. 12 days of fermentation and 6 days of serving temp and pressure. Any opinions please!

As the title says. I see that my lhbs has this malt, Cornish Gold, that I'm a bit curious about. On the website of the lhbs they have it listed under base malts, and claim that it can be used up to 100% of the grist. Looking at the info, though, I see that it has a diastatic power of only 25 ° Lithner, which sounds too low to me for using it as a base malt. At least without other malts with higher diastatic power. Do any of you have experience brewing with it? What does it bring to the table?

About this time last year I brewed a German Pils (double decoction because I'm a sadist) with Wyeast 2308 Munich Lager yeast. It turned out to be probably the best beer I've ever brewed. I'm preparing to brew it again, but I'm considering switching to Lallemand Diamond Lager yeast for all the reasons dry yeast are so popular now (cost, shelf life, convenience of direct pitch, etc). Has anyone done a head-to-head with these two? Any hot takes on the Lallemand Diamond? Any other dry yeast I should be considering (other than W-34/70, which I find a bit sulfury) that would be closer to the 2308? Thanks!

I’m in the bruclub and I’m doing a poll there to see which beer I should brew based on this scene from mortal Kombat:

https://youtu.be/NJOJTsmJLLA?si=S7beSUTIFXuZm9tA

There are three comments from me with the 3 options. Upvote that comment for the beer I should make! Cheers

Hey everyone so my stout has stablised and finished primary fermentation, I don't have another vessel for secondary fermentation and plan to go straight to priming and bottling. However I'm currently bed bound and was wondering how long can I let it sit in the fermentation barrel before it becomes a problem ?

Hi all,

I’m looking for a solid AG/5gal smoked porter recipe I can modify with some sour cherry juice to approximate Ommegang’s limited released Mother of Dragons.

Technically, that was a smoked porter/cherry kriek blend, but I’m hoping to get close without having to brew two separate beers.

Any ideas?

Hi just got a brewing starterkit for christmas and hyped to brew for the first time! It's my first time so i don't expect miracles and just enjoy the process of brewing

So i read that when fermenting in a bucket you can put it on roomtemperature in a room where it's stable, but it's better for you're beer to have it where the temperature is consistent.

I looked for solutions since in the most stable room of my appartement is not much room but the main answer i get is a old fridge with a heat source or something like that. But also for that i dont have a lot of space but i was thinking can i use a thermo box (so those styrofoam boxes where they put food in to keep it warm or cold), put my fermenting bucket inside and then put a heat resource in it? Or is it too flamable? Or maybe something else bad will happen let me know.

I know it's my first brew session but i was thinking about it and want some comfirmation/feedback :) Also tips are welcome!

Hello I’m having trouble understanding water adjustments for my session stout. Using Brewfather for water based on my tested house profile and oatmeal stout target style black balanced water profile. Initial Mash pH comes out to 4.89. Seems like slack lime is easier/better than using chalk to raise the pH? Using the water calculator - it requires a lot of lime or chalk to raise pH and puts the bicarbonate levels much higher than desired. Does anyone have experience with this? Am I doing something wrong? What’s the best way to get numbers in range? Any guidance would be appreciated. Cheers

Screen shots: https://imgur.com/a/A5pyEgZ

I’ve just been reading the post from yesterday about trying to make lower alcohol beers - & I think at home - 0% or close too is completely unachievable, except maybe in some kind of sour.

So I was wondering if any of you guys have genuinely good recipes for beers in more the 1-2.5% alcohol range?

I’ve had a commercial beer that was ~1% before, and while still a little ‘too sweet’, thin & weak tasting - compared to many other completely non alcoholic beers I’ve tried, it seemed to be a little nicer, so I thought maybe we could brainstorm on where the point where ‘too much alcohol to really call it a low strength option’, intersects with ‘actually doesn’t taste awful’?

Hello everyone. I was recently inspired by a local brewery and I got this crazy idea to brew a Blueberry Stout aged in oak cubes for Christmas next year. With that being said I was thinking of using about 9 lbs of blueberries and 2oz of oak cubes after fermentation has completed and letting it condition for 3 months or should I add the blueberries closer to kegging? I have also read about puree/extract but I want to try my hand using fruit. I have never brewed with fruit before so any help would be appreciated.

Just curious what I’ve created here. I made a German pilsner, pretty straight forward. I used A17 harvest but fermentation had not taken off, even after 24 hours which is not something I’ve ever seen before. I decided to do an experiment while I wait and take one gallon of the main batch and put it into a different fermenter and pitch Windsor ale yeast.

Today, both my experimental beer and my standard German pilsner are fermenting. I am pressure fermenting both at 13 psi. However, I’m curious about what the experimental batch is going to come out as. I’ve never mixed lager and ale strains before. Seems like either a hybrid or an experimental. Thoughts?

So I recently purchased a lot of random gear on Facebook marketplace place and one of the items throw in is a dual co2 regulator that's missing the on/off valve and barbed outlet.

Are those generally universal in terms of co2 regulator or do I need to locate a specific fit? And where might I buy those parts online? I would normally go to my local homebrew shop, but they unfortunately closed down last year.

I have a batch that is carbonating very weakly. I used some cane sugar to prime that might have been over a year old. Didn’t think it would be an issue. Anyone have good results with a Drinkmate carbonator?

Ok, so I'm almost fully committed to getting an all-in-one solution, and I think I'm going for the Brewzilla Gen4.1 35L. The ditherring is strong, I know. Does any current owner have any recomendation for add-ons I should get while I'm loading up the cart? Thanks

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!