As a new home brewer, I've been reading up on posts regarding things that can go wrong during a brew and how to fix them. For example, if I have understood correctly, stuck fermentation may require extra yeast to get things going again. Now, Murphy's law dictates the local brew shop will be closed when/if this happens. I am thinking it might make sense to keep a couple packets of Safale 05 (seems to be a general option for the …
Sometimes things don't go so well. Sometimes relaxing and having a homebrew doesn't quite do the trick. Sometimes it's not just going to fix itself. It would be helpful to have some images to compare against as things go wrong. For this community wiki, each "answer" should be a type of issue, like contamination, with an image (or multiple images) that are good examples of the issue. Note: This is a community wiki. No one will gain reputation for up …
I started brewing with the grainfather about a year ago and have done 5+ brews. I have been milling my own grain from the start. All of the brews have had a problem with astringency: some more some less. So in my last brew I changed a number of parameters: I got the grain pre-ground from the shop to rule out that I was milling too fine I did not wait until the very last drop of the sparge but …
I have this problem with my beer and I couldn't find any answer from my friends, experts, or web pages. Following primary fermentation (1 week) I move the green beer to a food grade plastic container inside a refrigerator (25 F). Following a few days of maturation a strange smell (less in flavor) like wet cloth or dirty cloth comes up. I have found this smell in the Brooklyn's Summer Ale, in fact my beer is a summer ale (blond …
I have two batches of pear cider, one I used an American yeast and one I used a champagne yeast. After racking the the airlocks were replaces and I have about 4 gallons in a 6.5 gallon glass carboy. A week after racking the champagne yeast batch has turned a darker brown then that of the American yeast batch. Is there something wrong and if so what could i do to fix it?
I started a Belgium style ale, about 1.064 og. After 2 days I go check on it in the fermentation fridge and see that the lid of the bucket has blown open, blown the fridge door open, and krausen was everywhere. I don't know how long it was like this. I obviously closed it up again and closed the fridge. Is the beer still fine to bottle? How do I prevent this in the future? http://imgur.com/a/CJKKC
I'm brewing my second batch and had a bit of an accident yesterday. I brewed 20l two days ago and when I checked my fermenter (bucket) yesterday it had overflown. I don't know what possessed me to open the lid and clean in, instead of just cleaning the mess and airlock, but I did. The bucket was open for maybe 10-15mins. I did clean and sanitize both lid and airlock, so hopefully there's no contamination, but I am worried about …
Brewed my very first batch today. It is a stout and is sitting in my basement as I type. I would call the day a success--a whole lot more work than I thought. Hopefully only two things went wrong: I had a little bit of a boil over when we were still trying to get a handle on how to control the turkey fryer heat. I broke my hydrometer. In your opinions, how serious are these issues? Anything I need …
Context: I am currently working on a batch of jalapeno-cranberry wine. It's been in primary for five days so far and I am beginning to suspect I have flowers in my wine. I was not too concerned earlier this week as I thought it was just residual foam from an active fermentation, but the more time goes by, the more I suspect there is a problem. Problem: When I view the must, it appears as if there are little flecks …
I was all ready to bottle up my IPA last night (and yes, since this is StackExchange, I named the brew "IPAddress"). Everything got sanitized, bottles were de-labeled, the whole nine yards. I boil the priming sugar, pour it in, give it a stir, and it's looking lovely. I grab the first bottle, a cap, and....and where's the capper? I spent the majority of last night turning my apartment over, looking for the dang thing. No dice - my best …
I've just finished bottling my first homebrew; how it tastes in two weeks will be the ultimate arbiter of my success, but I feel like I made very few mistakes for a n00b and I don't think any of them will turn out to be fatal. However, the one thing that kept plaguing me throughout the process was the various bits of vinyl tubing. Here's some examples of accidents that happened: The tubing on my wort chiller expanded slightly from …
A few batches ago, I had a "learning experience". I now have some pretty good ideas of where I went wrong (mainly, not having any idea how to design a recipe), but I'm wondering what I can do with a case of not-very-tasty (but not completely ruined) beer. This mess started with: Using too much molasses (12oz jar of molasses, with 9lbs DME) Pitching a single smack-pack into a wort with OG of 1.090+ Using about half of the amount …
My question is in my primary fermenter. If the airlock is not bubbling does that mean its not fermenting. I have two on the go one is bubbling and the other one is. What should I do?
So I went to my local brewing store, and got a starter kit. It came with a 7 gallon fermenter, a siphon tube, a floating thermometer, bottle caper, bottle caps, bottle scrubber, and sanitizer. By the way I have multiple questions. I know most first time brewing experiences are uneasy, but I was hoping someone could make mine slightly easier. I explained to the lady at the brew shop that I wanted to make a blonde ale similar to the …