Tastybrew User Journals

The homebrewing journals are designed as a way for you, the homebrewer, to let us, the Tastybrew users, know what you're brewing or what you're drinking (or most anything else). This is a good way for other users of Tastybrew to learn more about other homebrewers and enhance the community feel. So share whatever is on your mind. (Website registration required to add journal entries.)

Recent Journal Entries

By MiTcH on May 7th 2008, 10:15 pm	Permalink
so im thinking of this for a bw recipe 19lb american 2-row 0.5 lb crystal 40 0.25 lb crystal 20 0.37 lb special roast 0.25 lb chocolate wheat 2oz magnum - 90 min 1.5 perle - 25 min 1.5 centiennal - 10 min denny's fav 50 yeast any thoughts...let me know

By chris schroeder on May 7th 2008, 2:19 pm	Permalink
Hello all fellow homebrewers......Im extremely new to this,only brewing about a year,loving every minute of it.hope to chat with you in the future.

By Matthew on Mar 20th 2008, 3:25 pm

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brew day 3-20-08 #220 starter for yeast Exta Pale; Lightning Pale cleaned and prept water yesterday 5 lbs 2-row Cargill Pale 4 ozs. biscuit Ding. 2 ozs. Spec.Roast Briess 4 ozs. Torrified wheat Briess 8 ozs. 10' cry Briess Mash; short step- 144' 10 mins. ramp to 154' 20 mins. 156' 20 mins. 172 5 mins. .50 oz. EKG 6.2% 60 mins. 19 IBUs .25 oz. EKG 6.2% 15 mins. 4 IBUs OG; 50 Gals; 3.25 YEAST STRAIN: 1028 | London Ale? Rich with a dry finish, minerally profile, bold and crisp, with some fruitiness. Often used for higher gravity ales and when a high level of attenuation is desired for the style. Origin: Flocculation: Medium-Low Attenuation: 73-77% Temperature Range: 60-72F, 15-22C Alcohol Tolerance: 10%ABV Popped; 3/19/08 5:24:58 PM

By steve breingan on Mar 20th 2008, 1:08 am	Permalink
rough week here. blew the top off my fermenter (imperial stout). flat hefe batch and had a bottle blow up with a belgian triple. after 50 gallons i guess im getting to bold or to careless.

By luigi on Mar 17th 2008, 7:03 pm	Permalink
Hello I am Luigi the first Italian of this wonderful forum I know the english only a bit I am a homebrewer from about 7 years

By Heath Haynes on Mar 2nd 2008, 6:13 pm	Permalink
Hi everyone, first time question long time viewer. Thanks for your forum it been a great help. Question: I kegged a Paulaner Hefe-Weizen Clone yesterday. I am getting different amount of vol co2 to use. Designing Great beers says to Carbonate to 3.6 to 5.1. Brewing Classic Styles says between 2.5 to 3.0 vol. Any one have a suggestion??

By Greg Galczynski on Feb 28th 2008, 12:39 am	Permalink
I would like to add a beer quote..and it said to use the contact page. Anyone wanna tell how to find it ??????

By they made me change my name on Feb 17th 2008, 8:11 am

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120 quart cooler converted to mashtun...75 dollars 30 lbs of grain and associated in mashtun...30 dollars Having to dig out the valve on your mashtun when your buddy knocks off the screen filter while breaking up dough balls...in Priceless! Do not let intoxicated people reassemble the filter system in your mashtun. They forget to actually screw in the filter causing you to be completely covered in hot sticky goodness. If this was a porn shoot it would be ok, but since it was three guys in a garage it did not make for a good time. We scooped the grains and water out using a pot and put it in some buckets till we were able to dig the crap out of the ball valve and re-attach the filter, so after about 20 minutes of bitching we were able to pour it back in and do the runoff and get to the sparge. The new 15 gallon kettle is one of the best investments we have made as of yet next to the 50 ft. immersion chiller and the grain mill. It was only the first batch, but it worked great. Hopefully it holds up over time.

By Tom K on Dec 20th 2007, 11:55 pm

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Bouncing back from a 6 month brewing hiatus while we got out of debt. Did the Dave Ramsey thing, and we're debt-free except for the house. Feels great! But the closet is bare, and it's time to restock with brew. Started with a cream ale that I will add vanilla to in secondary this weekend. Using part of the cake for a brown ale tomorrow, and then will use the whole cake from that to do an american barleywine (recipe TBD). After those I want to do a belgian golden ale to practice having a light touch, and then use the cake for a rochefort 8 or 10 clone. Seems like I'm planning my beers around my yeasts these days. I used to pitch a new vial and not reuse it. I also want to start planning brews for competition. I'm not looking to gratify my competitive streak (though it exists!), but I think that I need outside input and more discipline if I'm going to keep improving at this point. And maybe the wife will be impressed if I put a few ribbons on the wall.

By they made me change my name on Dec 17th 2007, 11:20 pm	Permalink
3Lbs of Briess light DME 3.3lbs Coopers Light LME (late addition) 1lb Chocolate Rye 1lb Crystal 60L .5lb Munich .5lb Black Patent 1oz Perle @ 45 min 1oz Perle @ 5 min 1oz Perle @ 0 min 1 vial White Labs Dry English Ale 1 packet safale us-05 (Just because) 1tsp Irish Moss @ 15min Yeast Nutrient @ 15 min

By TomW on Nov 25th 2007, 2:40 am

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21 lbs Canadian 2 Row 1 lb Crystal 40 .5 lb Wheat Malt .25 lb Crystal 120 pinch of Chocolate Malt 1 oz Nugget 12.8 % 70 Minutes (First Wort hopped) 1 Oz Cascade 50 Minutes 1 Oz Nugget 12.8% 45 Minutes .5 Cascade 10 minutes .5 Cascade 0 minutes - as I'm cooling the wort 2 tbsp Irish moss 10 minutes before the end of the boil S.G 1.058 Low initial mash 136 F 1 hour Scooped 1/3 mash and brought to a boil and added back to the mash raised the mash to 148 for 1 hour Sparged out at 170 F Made roughly 12 gallons OG 1.058 Added Chico Ale yeast from my Friends at the Costal Extreem Brewing Company These guys know how to Brew!

By TomW on Nov 25th 2007, 2:39 am

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21 lbs Canadian 2 Row 1 lb Crystal 40 .5 lb Wheat Malt .25 lb Crystal 120 pinch of Chocolate Malt 1 oz Nugget 12.8 % 70 Minutes (First Wort hopped) 1 Oz Cascade 50 Minutes 1 Oz Nugget 12.8% 45 Minutes .5 Cascade 10 minutes .5 Cascade 0 minutes - as I'm cooling the wort 2 tbsp Irish moss 10 minutes before the end of the boil S.G 1.058 Low initial mash 136 F 1 hour Scooped 1/3 mash and brought to a boil and added back to the mash raised the mash to 148 for 1 hour Sparged out at 170 F Made roughly 12 gallons Added Chico Ale yeast from my Friends at the Costal Extreem Brewing Company These guys know how to Brew!

By DOUGCANNON on Nov 9th 2007, 8:47 pm	Permalink
I WORK HERE AT HOP UNION MIGHT HAVE ALITTLE EXTRA MISC PRODUCT TO SHARE

By skipv on Oct 12th 2007, 6:43 pm	Permalink
No-Sparge question. I've used the no-sparge calculator on the tastybrew site 3 times now and got significant variations in yield. Are there any known common errors or things to keep in mind when using this technique? I haven't read Ken's complete document on the subject yet. Thanks for the feedback, Skip

By vickerss shane on Sep 22nd 2007, 8:48 pm	Permalink
What up E! Welcome to a complete site for all your beer needs! Feel free to ask questions. Plenty of knowledgable home breweres here.

By Stucozzy on Sep 21st 2007, 3:43 am

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John, I hope you read this: Update: I've graduated from kits and have moved on to experimentation. Last weekend I bottled a Honey-Lake Ale. Used water from an artesian well, added wild honey to the boil, fermenter, and in conditioning, dry-hopped with fuggles pellets (also had fuggles in the boil; 60 and 30min)... and the exotic ingredient: 10 fresh mint leaves dry-hopped. Should be ready in a week or two. Unfortunately used the Muntons dry-yeast... wish I had a White Labs Cream Ale vial... As soon as bottling was complete I began a dark pumpkin ale. Really pleased with how it went: amber LME, pilsen light DME, steeped: cooked oatmeal, crystal 60, and a touch of chocolate. williamette (3.8%) pellet. cinnamon sticks, cloves, ginger... oh, yeah and 100% pumpkin puree. White Labs Cream Ale... which only started bubbling after 6 days when the heat came through northern michigan. Next time will try w/o the pumpkin and maybe w/o the spices. Looks like it could be a killer brown. Awesome. Cheers. Stu

By Eric Anderson on Sep 19th 2007, 1:41 am

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I'm about 7 batches into the whole home brew business (extract only so far). A friend of mine and I had made the "Dixie Blackened Voodoo Lager" out of CLONE BREWS recently with it turning out pretty well. I'm currently working on an Amber Ale that includes some honey to boost the alcohol level. If anyone takes a look at this, would you please enlighten me as to when to add the honey to the boil (before the boil, during, or after) and how it affects the batch. Muchas Gracias, E

By Han Solo on Sep 3rd 2007, 1:06 pm

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My friend and I are planning a Pumpkin Ale from a Cream Ale base. We have discovered that using the liquid White Labs picthable yeast vials work perfectly with the extract ales we have been producing. After just missing in a recent competition, we decided most of our short comings was due mostly by using dry yeast. Although, the beer was very drinkable, to a judge with exact tastes, it was recognizable. This will be our first attempt at a spiced beer and hope to be drinking it by Thanksgiving. We also plan to brew another first, mexican beer. This will be our 7th batch and it is amazing what you can learn from the more you brew but we gathered even more from reading our judges sheets from the competition. It was interesting to see how the judges varied on the same sample. But we found out a way to improve our brew from the experience. Our main goal isn't to win a competiton, maybe a small goal, but to brew really good beer and improve it each and every time.

By Wayne on Aug 22nd 2007, 7:10 pm	Permalink
Made the 15 gallon batch and what a nightmare session it turned into.. Only managed to get 53% extraction which is down on the last batch. I put it down to using a new setup that I've only used once before combined with teething problems with the Speck My2-8000 pump that was underpowered. Other than that it's a nice tasting brew which I hope to leave for at least a month before drinking.

By Wayne on Aug 7th 2007, 7:07 pm

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On Friday I'm planning to do a 15 Imp Gal batch using the following: 12.5 Kg Pale Malt 1.5 Kg Flaked Corn 1 Kg Carapils .5 Kg Carahell Mashed in 10 Imp Gal at 66C for 1 hour. Batch Sparged with 10 Imp Gal at 72C. 100 gms East Kent Goldings 4.2%AA for 60 mins 25 gms Hallertauer 2.8%AA 60 mins 75 gms Hallertauer 2.8%AA Finishing 3 Tsp Irish Moss 3 Pks Safale If My previous calculations for the 10 Gal batch I did at 66% post boil eff are correct then this should be around 1.055 with a FG of around 1.008 giving 6%+ ABV If I can get the post boil efficiency above 66% then I'll be most pleased. The last batch I used Caustic Soda as a sterilizer and cleaner. I have had no off flavours/smells with that batch and so plan to continue using it in every batch hereafter.