Ok so I'm making some hard alcohol from a sugar-wash. I used too little yeast and fermentation ended up halting at like 7% ABV, it then stood around for like a week and a half till I got the new yeast. I freeze distilled most of it after it finished, hopefully at around 13% but can't tell because I added some water with the new yeast, used a sterile syringe and distilled water. Because I used a new container and …

I've just been playing with some treatments for an undercarbonated batch in bottles. The beer is slightly carbonated, it bubbles up a little when poured, just builds no head & dissipates instantly. I thought I'd try opening a couple of bottles & adding some carbonation drops, re-seal & see what happens after a week or two. I put 1 drop each in 2 bottles and 2 drops each in another 2 bottles. When the sugar was added to the beer, …

I am trying to break down the starches in a certain variety of oats in the most efficient way possible. I have to break the whole oats down after cooking, so they are finer particles for the amylases (alpha amylase and gluco-amylase) to do its work in the liquid. I have been adding the amylases at the beginning of blending of the whole oats (at a temperature of about 35 centigrade) because I thought it would help the enzyme process, …

I'd like to know in terms of chemical bonds, what ageing actually means. It should also explain the "smoothness" of a finely aged wine.

Essentially what the title says. I use that bucket to store all the measurement equipment, hydrometer, etc. but also yeast nutrient, stabilisers and chemical sanitisers. The smell that came out from the bucket was pretty strong and sharp, leaving a tingly feeling in my nostrils for some minutes after getting a big whiff of it. I have a bunch of strawberries I have just thawed for wine making and I wanted to check that this wasn't a product of some …

I am looking for a good, in-depth source on biotransformations (think food science). For example, fermenting black tea and sugar with wild yeast and bacteria (kombucha): Wild yeast ferment sucrose into ethanol Bacteria (in the presence of oxygen) convert that ethanol to acetic acid (sours the solution and lowers pH) This is a transformation of sucrose into acetic acid through the use of yeast and bacteria (but which ones?). Or: Malting grain causes production of enzymes that later break down …

So here's my predicament: I've realized that my city water has low Chloride levels compared to the sulfates (i.e. the sulfate/chloride ratio is higher than ideal). Reading that this might be the case, I measured out the approx. amount of CaCl2 to be added to one of my already bottled beers. I poured the beer into a glass and added the salt. Waited for the salt to dissolve, and tasted the beer. This resulted in a much smoother, fuller body …

In a nutshell: moved, Star San bottle broke, got on a bunch of supplies including my stainless steel spoon. Now the spoon is rough where the sanitizer spilled and slightly discolored. The spoon was a gift and has no manufacturer markings or the like, but it appears to be stainless steel. Is it toast, or is this just cosmetic?

I'm lucky enough to have beautiful New Zealand rainwater to brew with. But, what are the considerations in terms of mineral content? Is rainwater close to distilled water? Having gone through the same natural purification process of evaporation, is all rainwater more or less chemically the same? The air here (rural Auckland) is very clean so I'm guessing that acidification etc... from atmospheric particulates should be practically zero. What mineral / chemical additions do people make when brewing with rainwater?

Which 2-3 types of beer generally take the shortest time to brew from start (very first step with all ingredients) to finish (drinking), and what makes them take so little time? I want to understand what makes a beer brew quickly/slowly, but specifically for a few examples.

I have a "Maytag Handy Chiller" - it's a great kitchen tool for chilling a bottle of wine in a few minutes which works buy circulating ice water over a bottle ( and optionally rotating it too ) to get the liquid down to drinking temp in a few minutes. We got it free with our fridge when we bought it - the kind of thing I'd never fork out for but I love it for the many times it's …

I'm using gypsum for the first time in an IPA I will be brewing in a few days. Today I was making the starter and thought: Since it's a hopped starter, why not add a pinch of gypsum? In the end I used PDME and yeast nutrient along with 2g Columbus hops and a tiny pinch of gypsum. As I usually do with anything I brew, I drew a very small sample to smell and taste it. When I tried …

This question is kind of for the chemists here, but I'm open to any ideas. In this question Denny Conn, who is far more experienced than me, asserted that a beer is likely finished fermenting, despite being at 1.036 (from a start of 1.056). This would be a beer that's about 2.6% alcohol and 9% unfermentables. To me, that would be undrinkable. Many people suggested rousing the yeast and/or re-pitching to finish out the fermentation. The important point is, how …

My water supply comes through San Diego's Miramar treatment plant, and here's the data sheet. Here's the relevant part: Units Avg Range Total Hardness ppm 214 142 - 243 Total Hardness gr/Gal 12.2 8.3 - 14.2 And an excerpt from the footnotes: Hardness is the sum of polyvalent cations present in the water, which is essentially the sum of magnesium and calcium. These cations are usually naturally occurring. Okay, now, I'm trying to use this scale under "Determining the Beer …

Various sources (such as this and this) discuss how excessively low wort pH (for example, from dark specialty grains) can result in a thin beer, even when extract brewing. I've been unable to find any source that explains why this happens. My understanding is that body/mouthfeel depends on final gravity (which seems like it's independent of pH, given a starting gravity) and proteins in the beer (such as those introduced by using Carapils). Why does this happen?

I have been reading a lot about home brewing. I'm planning actually to build an electronic 5 gallon brewery. Could anyone provide a short explanation when (mashing, boiling ?!), why and how much to use of the following salts? Gypsum / Calcium Sulphate (CaS04) Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) Pure / Unscented Epsom Salt (MgS04) Chalk / Calcium Carbonate (CaC03) Baking Soda (NaHC03) Non-Iodized salt / Pickling salt / Kosher salt (NaCl) Are they really necessary? :/ Cheers!

Does a dark and roasty wort effect the ability to read the color change strips. I am not talking about how dark grains effect pH, I get that. I simply mean the color of stout wort vs. pilsner wort. It has to have an effect on an accurate color comparator right? I have used the strips plenty in the past in my lab career and also when screwing around with wort/water chemistry use pale ale as a learning tool. But …

I know this is probably a quirky question for this forum, but here goes. I'm getting into home brewing, and today I stumbled a cross the website for American Society for Brewing Chemists (ASBC) http://www.asbcnet.org/checksample/beer_analysis.htm. The page I just linked to is for the beer analysis service offered by ASBC. For the analysis, they test 32 different properties of the beer. Does anyone know if there is a known way to quantify or approximate the taste of a beer just …

I feel like I should learn more about the chemistry involved in brewing. Can anybody recommend some good books for learning about brewing chemistry and how it relates to brew outcomes? I'd prefer something pretty readable, something I could read cover to cover rather than a reference book or text book, but I would would still be interested in learning some of the science involved.

I have been using Martin Brungard's Bru'n Water spreadsheet to build up my water profiles from distilled water. This has worked very well for the dozen or so ales I've made. This weekend, I'll be brewing a Maibock (my first lager), and I'm not sure which water profile to aim for. The "yellow malty", "yellow balanced", "amber malty", and "amber balanced" sound close, but I'm not sure which one is the best fit. Also, there is an "american lager" profile, …