Most guides to forced carbonation stipulates you must chill the keg first. But the carbonation charts allow for the scenario of temperatures around my "room temp" being 20c/68f. From the "set and forget numbers" how long should I expect carbonation to take?

Do I keep the regulator attached set to the correct psi or do you charge the keg to that pressure and then disconnect? The whole idea of "set and forget" suggests you can't screw up but surely you can't leave the reg connected at high PSI for weeks on end.

Basically just looking for a way to turn tap water into distilled water so I don't have to spend money on bottled water. I've seen these solar kettles and was wondering if something like that could be made or even bought and converted to distill rather than just boil water. https://www.amazon.com/Distiller-Camping-Portable-Survival-Backpacking/dp/B0C14KWX57

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!

Hey all!

I am newcomer interested in brewing and am going to give it a go with my dad this summer! For starters, I am starting at (almost) square one myself, however, my dad went to school for wine making and has made many, many batches of beer over his lifetime, granted it’s been a few years.

So here’s my question: Anyone got any good book recommendations that delve a bit into the science of home brewing that are decently entertaining? I’ve found textbooks to be my favorite way to learn about this kind of thing (graduating college senior, go figure), and I’m guessing given the nature of this community there’s gotta be a plethora of books that are informative and witty at the same time!

Thanks in advance :)

Why is it not recommended to leave fruits or sugars or even just the water alone for months to sit. But when it's brewing it's fine?

What is saving you from ameoba or legonairs disease? Among other nasty things.

So I've got myself an old Grainfather, couple carboys, syphons and scrubbers and sanitizer and a 3gal keg and bottles for the overflow...gonna get a thing that regulates temp for the fermenter, got an ice chest...I've only brewed 3 times, just stuck the latest one in the closet.

What else can I collect to bring me up to speed? Again, very much a beginner. I hear terms like "cold crash" and I'm not sure wtf I'm hearing. But I quest to become an og, one day. What do you say? What am I missing?

I’ve always transferred from my fermenter, into a corny keg, and then place the keg in my chest freezer to cold crash for about 24hrs. Then I add my gelatin (mixed with sanitized water) via the beer out port. This has worked well but the process is a PIA because I tend to make a mess using a syringe connected to a quick disconnect on the keg post. It just gets super sticky and I’m afraid if introducing any sort of infection . I saw a video where the fella prepared his gelatin solution, poured it into the sanitized, empty keg, then filled and purged the keg with Co2. Finally he filled the keg in a standard closed transfer. If I switch to his process would you expect the gelatin to still be as effective?

I’d love to hear what your process is for adding fining agents during kegging.

I went through my normal brew day process but obviously had something go wrong somewhere. After mash I took a gravity reading of 1.040 on my refractometer. Now after finishing my boil and transferring to my fermenter I am getting a reading of 1.035 on my refractometer and my Tilt Hydrometer is reading 1.033. How is this possible? If my wort has stratified in the fermenter could that be the cause? I have never seen lower gravity after a boil than before.

Hey all!

I am fermenting a double ipa in a keg. Any advice for dealing with the yeast cake at the bottom? My plan is to transfer the beer to another keg post fermentation and try to get as little yeast from the cake as possible into the serving keg.

Let me know if anyone has experience

Is canada the only place in the world where home brewing is cheaper than buying it?

https://imgur.com/a/csWVxBB Hi all I have those show up on my Irish Stout. Ther is no of putting smell. They look scaly up close without any tendrils. Should I scrap the batch?

Hello all, today I tried beer brewing for the really first time. I wanted to try we an amber, according to the recipe, first 1 hour at 65° and then 15 minutes at 72°. First I took the water at 65, then I have gently added the malts using a filtering bag. Issues started when I wanted to rise to 72, the thermometer went like crazy and totally unreliable. It is a digital one with probe and cable. Different temperatures depending in I was placing the probe inside or outside of the bag with the grains. In the end, i am not sure at which temperature i had the 72° step.

No big deal, learning by doing, but the question is: how I can accurately measure during that step?

I know the information is not enough but maybe we can try and guess this recipe, the name of the beer is Hazy IPA and that’s the description

https://imgur.com/a/GvhnXhz

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!

Does anyone know if there is an electric hydrometer? Or a device I can use to test alcohol % without going through the steps of a traditional hydrometer. More like an add sample and it tells you?

I've been making my own beer for ages, but now I have a fiance and she drinks those seltzer things. She mostly drinks the high noon vodka waters but also some white claws too. And it would save us a lot of money if I just had a seltzer on tap in my kegerator.

My logic says just grab a few handles of vodka and pour into a keg with some RO water, sugar, add some flavor, carbonate, and call it a day.

Has anyone done this? Like how much vodka to water ratio to end up around 5-7% ABV? Oh wait did I just answer my own question lol (17:3 water:vodka) How much flavor to add? I know that's a personal preference thing but a eyeballed starting point would be helpful.

Is there anything else that I would do? I'm guessing boil the water then add sugar to make it all sterile then chill like I would beer and add flavor last.

This is my 2nd batch of beer.

The 1st batch (MoreBeer American Ale) had fermentation activity for almost 2 weeks.

This batch (MoreBeer ObSession IPA) created foam and visibly churned for the first 2 days, but is now inactive/inert.

Is it done fermenting, did not complete fermentation, or something else?

I am slowly building out my kegerator, but wanted to test out one of my 2.5 gallon kegs out separately as I have never kegged and wanted to get practice in a relatively cheap way. When finding a recipe, this one popped up on the yeast that it recommended and it seams easy enough. I was going to do a 5 gallon batch, use about 2-2.5 gallons for the keg and bottle the rest to give to a friend.

My question is, in the recipe, it says 4 days and then serve. Usually when bottling beers I rack it and bottle condition for 2 weeks after 2 weeks of fermentation. With the recipe, after 4 days, do I need to rack it and then condition it? I plan on using buckets for the fermentation and then tranferring to keg and bottles. Keg will go in my fridge with the CO2 tank I have as it is small enough to fit.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Link: https://omegayeast.com/4-day-lutra-hard-seltzer-recipe

Has anyone done overnight mashes with an electric RIMS system? There are plenty of folks who've had success with an overnight mash where they insulate their tun with a kettle, etc, but didn't see too much about letting a RIMS system run all night.

I've recently gotten back into brewing after about 4 or 5 years of not brewing and have been dialing in all my old equipment. I typically keg my brews in a corny and use a converted dorm/ mini fridge with a tower kit I installed for my kegerator. Before the break I would occasionally have issues with foam that were easily solved with tweaks to the pressure or ensuring I hadn't partially frozen the line or some such thing. This time around I'm having a constant foaming issue that I cannot figure out with any of my normal troubleshooting or with googling my broken little heart out. Please help. I can't figure out how to post a pic or I would. I have about 10 ft of line loosely coiled going from the keg to the tower tap. The fridge is cooled to about 42* there's no air or foam to be seen in the line except right next to where it connects to the tap, it starts to gather there after pouring a beer. I disconnected the line, cleaned the hell out of the tap and put it all back together, same problem. Any suggestions and wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

I have 3 gallons of lager that I overshot the gravity I wanted and it is at 5.6 abv at 1.011. I am considering watering it down to get to 5 abv in the keg. I have read lots of posts regarding DO and deoxygenation concepts. I’m curious if anyone has any REAL EXPERIENCE good or bad in watering at packaging? I’m not looking for hypothetical information, what Palmer wrote, podcaster said, suggestions to water down in serving glass, etc. I understand the concerns about oxygenation and the optimal time to fix gravity post boil is pre-fermentation. Just curious if anyone really has run into oxygenation off flavor doing this.

Can anyone comment on their experiences with this? I'm considering using it in some meads but then heard that it has a shelf life. Is that just for the vegan chitosan packet, or would an expiration affect my mead, too?

Yes, I know there are different options and ways of fining. I am going to use Bentonite and wanted to counter fine with something. This is the only vegan fining agent I could find with an opposite charge to Bentonite.

I brewed a pilsner a few days ago (simple grain bill of pils malt with a bit of carapils). I ground the malt a little too fine and ended up hitting a higher efficiency and didn't want to waste the extra wort I collected.

I boiled the extra 3 gallons with 2-3 oz of old fuggles (friend gave me them 3-4 years ago and I left them on the shelf in my garage for a potential future sour). I popped a bottle of 2020 De Cam Geueze that I picked up on my trip to Belgium last summer and poured the dregs into the carboy.

I didn't expect to get any activity any time soon given that I only added a single set of dregs from an older bottle (didn't have anything fresher in the cellar) without stepping it up with a starter. But I went downstairs this morning (72 hours after innoculating) to find a krausen!

I'll probably have another bottle or two of different lambics/gueuzes over the weekend to add a bit to it but I'm really surprised this worked so quickly. I've only brewed a few sours in the past and never had any luck with bottle dregs. Maybe it was the aged hops? Or a bottle that didn't get shipped over in a hot container?

​

Please can someone help me locate an old website I stumbled upon few years ago. Google is not helping really.

It was some website back from the 1990s I think, or early 2000s written by some Scandinavian (Norwegian?), if I remember correctly, who did a lot of research in the history of beer brewing and he also wrote some recipes for old types of beer/ale. Like - take malted grains, mash them, add yeast, cover with wet cloth, drink next day.

The whole website/blog was basically just white background with a wall of text.

If someone knows it I would be very thankful!

Edit: Nevermind, I found it:

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pwp/tofi/medieval_english_ale.html

Thank you all!

I'm trying to connect an RO filter (with tank) to a kegland continuous carbinator lid (which takes a water input) to produce seltzer on tap at home.

Pic and plumbing diagram: https://imgur.com/a/Sp83p09

Normally my RO system outputs 40psi, indicated in the gauge (see pic). The lid wants a water pressure input at least 10psi higher than the co2 input: this is my challenge. When I open the valve to allow water supply to the keg lid the pressure, let it run a bit, the gauge goes to 20psi. I was hoping the check valve (between RO output and the keg lid) would somehow maintain the RO output pressure at 40 psi so that I could set the co2 to around 30psi.

I'm using the quickconnect check valve recommended on the kegland product page. Does it allow some air back back in towards the RO output? If I turn up the co2 pressure too high I even get some gurgling in the RO filters. I don't understand check valves enough.

​

While reviewing my brew processes again, I had concerns around the wort chiller.

I have a copper coil chiller, when it comes out of storage even if it's only sat a few days it will be covered in that standard deep chocolate brown of copper oxide (actually black, but a thin layer over the pink copper gives brown).

When it comes back out after cooling the wort it is back to bright pink copper.

So my conclusion is that the copper oxide ends up in the wort.

My next question was... is this a problem.

Well, copper oxide is, in many situations highly toxic.

The blessing however is that copper oxide is NOT water soluble. So assuming you let the beer settle in the kettle before you rack it and you try not to drink the wort or beer when cloudy, you should not ingest any copper oxide....

But I'm not a safety data-sheet writer!

Thoughts?

Hazard, Non-Hazard? Hazard but easily addressed, mitigated with process?

I mean... we drink water out of copper taps every day!

I brewed a very hoppy SMaSH with pale malt, and the bottles stored on the side developed very noticeable oxidation after 10 days (the liquid is dark brown), while the bottles stored upright are still golden yellow after 25 days. I used caps and fliptops for this "experiment", both show signs of oxidation if stored on the side.

Any idea why?

Hey gang - I recently brewed a 5gal hazy IPA with the following recipe: 1 lb flaked oats 1 lb golden oats 1 lb American 2 row Partial mash for an hour, rinsed the grain bag and squeezed all liquid out. Boiled in 6 lbs XL DME Whirlpooled 2oz Citra and 2oz Mosaic Added 1 tsp amylase to the carboy Pitched 1 pack of LalBrew North East

The wort was like sand colored milk and had a silkyness to it that I have never seen before. Definitely from the grain bill being 66% oats. The OG was 1.072.

Anyway, the yeast is being very productive and the smell is great, BUT I’m wondering if the final product will be silky from the oats or if there’s any process I can use to prevent that from happening?

My next step is a secondary with more hops, and a cold crash for a few days before kegging.

Has anyone ever made an IPA that was kinda weird from too much oats?

Can someone please clarify for me the correct way to calculate yeast pitch rates?

I'm using brewfather calculator and researching the CFU found on the yeast manufacturers website. For example, novalager has 5 billion CFU per gram (colony forming unit) so I put that in Brewfather under the billion cells per gram token. But that gives me a wildly larger pitch rate number than the manufacturers own calculator. Brewfather= 69g Lallemand=13g To equal lallemand results I need to change the brewfather input to 25 billion cells per gram not 5 per lallemand website.

OG 1053 21 litres 18 degrees

Is there a difference between cfu and brewfather billion cells per gram?

Thanks

Hey y'all,

So this is my very first time using Verdant IPA yeast. I brewed a 26L (6.85 gallons) batch of ale with Cascade, Mosaic, Simcoe, Magnum hops. OG was around 1.054, so not even that heavy. Also worth to mention: it wasn't necessary, but I rehydrated the yeast to give it a head start.

I'm in Hungary, and the weather got terrible a few days ago, it dropped like 15 degrees in a matter of a day. Started snowing at some places, night temperature dropped to freeze-point. Its crazy.

So, instead of taking the fermenter down to the basement at 14 °C (57 °F), I placed it in our dark, non-heated "laundry" room. The next day, there was still no airlock activity. One would argue 'the fermentation was mostly done', but there was no krausen on top, the side of the bucket (from the outside) seemed totally clean. I measured the temp, and it was only 16°C (60°F), which seemed way too cold, yet again. So, I brought it to my room, covered it with dark sheets, set the AC between 21-22 °C (70°F) and I let it be..

It's been over 24 hours, and still no noticeable airlock activity. I heard one (ONE) tiny escaped bubble at around 5 am, but that's it. Still no krausen on the sides. There's an unimpressive layer of yeast on top, so... that's something. There's some built-up pressure, the airlock is slightly uneven. But nothing more.

I was expecting wild krausen-ing, and 'fermentation that's done almost in a day', but this was not the case. Unless, it fermented in 8 hours with no foam or krausen or anything, which is unlikely.

Besides keeping calm, drinking and waiting, what else should I prepare for? Should I have a tiny sip of taste test, to see if there's alcohol and co2? If there's no krausen by the next week, should I just sprinkle in some S-33 or S-04 that I have here at home? I'm a bit worried that it won't be fully fermented, and I'll have timed bottle bombs on the shelves.

Cheers!