I've picked my grapes, but I don't have any yeast yet. How long can I leave them before crushing them and starting the fermentation for white wine.

I don't understand how open fermentation retains any alcohol.

As a recent experiment, I wanted to try something that was unconventional for most homebrewers, and is widely considered to be clown-crap crazy. I wanted to ferment a beer topless, without a lid. I settled on ten gallons of a Belgian Dubbel, split into two batches, one went into a better bottle with bung and airlock, the other half in a bucket without a lid for the first ~48-72 hours. For those who haven't tried this, I'd highly recommend it …

Just curious which specific strains can exist in beer, and if so, what are the various alcoholic thresholds for each?

I would like to go from the primary fermentation to the bottles with an open fermentation. Can I top off with water to get the full 5 gallons? Also would you primary an open fermentation for more than a week, and not secondary? It's a double ipa.

I've always been very careful about control and sanitation with beer. But with my wine I do some native yeast Pinots, and some friends of mine are into the same with beers- they like funky, sometimes sour, open-fermented farmhouse ales & Saisons or even some California knock-offs of the same. Sometimes I think there's something there, other times I think they're nasty. With wine, you have native yeast that's specific to the vineyard and lives on the skins of the …

I will soon be making a hefe and will be using wyeast's 3068. In recent hefes I have made, I have always desired much more intensity in the flavors provided by the yeast strain. The only method i am aware of to manipulate this yeast strain's flavor profile is fermentation temperature. But not only do I want to manipulate the yeast's flavor profile, I also want to make the flavor given off by the yeast much more intense. Any thoughts …

I've only recently been introduced to the glory of sour beers, and I love them. As a club, we're going to be brewing a sour beer to be aged in oak for years to come, so I was curious to see some questions on here about sour mashes. It sounds like the process is still similar, you're collecting bacteria and wild yeasts (we'll be using a commercially available combo pack), but is there an inherent value to doing this pre-boil? …

I'm considering trying to brew a simple lambic, which requires some open-air time for wild fermentation and souring of the wort prior to pitching yeast. I'm wondering if I could use a carboy as the vessel for this, or if its small mouth would prevent the desirable bacteria and wild yeast from making it into the wort.

Can open fermentation be done simply by putting the fermenting beer in a bucket carboy and covering it with foil? The purpose of the foil would be to just keep airborne contaminants from falling into the wort. Despite being "covered" with foil I would think that any restriction on the head space would be negligible compared to an air lock. So I don't think it would be much different than having a bucket wide open. I am considering this because …