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[fat pat]

Anyone know of a good home-made wine recipe?

YOU GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.

Spoiler

I know nothing about winemaking, but am potentially interested. I wonder if theres enough interest to make a thread?

 

[RiggenBlaque]

YOU GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.

Spoiler

I know nothing about winemaking, but am potentially interested. I wonder if theres enough interest to make a thread?

In my experience, wine making is a lot less popular of a discussion topic than beer. Probably because it's less popular and also there's a lot less work and refinement that goes into making wine (on the home scale).

 

[Angry Grimace]

In my experience, wine making is a lot less popular of a discussion topic than beer. Probably because it's less popular and also there's a lot less work and refinement that goes into making wine (on the home scale).

Given that most home wine I've seen is just buying a bunch of compressed grapes and pitching yeast into it, I'm a little sketchy on how much you can really play around with it the way you play around with meads and beers. Strangely, mead seems to be getting quite popular with make your own booze guys.

 

[AbortedWalrusFetus]

Last Christmas vacation I brewed my first homebrew. I brewed a Brown Ale and it turned out really good and it was relatively painless and easy. The hardest part was sanitizing everything. I plan on doing at least one more batch this holiday season as well. It's a lot of fun, especially listening to the bubbling when it's fermenting. So satisfying for some reason.

 

[Stet]

I made a mead a couple of weeks ago. It was very dry, and it developed a nice carbonation, but it's super expensive and I'm not sure if it's really worth it.

 

[RiggenBlaque]

What were you putting in the mead that made it expensive? Isn't it just water + honey and possibly some spices?

 

[sharkmuncher]

What were you putting in the mead that made it expensive? Isn't it just water + honey and possibly some spices?

Just the honey can start at ~$50/ 5 gallon batch and goes up from there quickly if you want a specific honey like orange blossom it can get expensive very quickly. (e.g. Tupelo Mead)

 

[Davedough]

Subscribed.


I've always wanted to get into this, but I don't know (yet) about getting into all these honey-raisin-brown-hefferwiezen-brown-ale-porter-double-half-caff-mocha beer varieties some people talk about. I'd like to clone some of my favorites, like Bass Ale, Taddy Porter, etc.

Thanks for the links. Those starter kits, especially the glass one from Austin are cheaper than I anticipated and just told the wife that's what I want for Christmas. I'm moving into a new house around that time with an unfinished basement. I'm pretty sure I could turn that into my brewing area.

A lot of these terms you guys are throwing around, I have no friggen clue what you're talking about. Splurge? mash-turn? Perhaps OP can get a link to a glossary added?

 

[fenners]

A lot of these terms you guys are throwing around, I have no friggen clue what you're talking about. Splurge? mash-turn? Perhaps OP can get a link to a glossary added?

There's a good glossary in the How To Brew book linked in the first post. I thoroughly agree the language/terms can be hard to get to grips with, there's a lot of old fashioned English words used for beer equipment/process.

Sparge is a step in all-grain brewing where you're 'rinsing' the grains to get more sugar/proteins out of them.

Mashtun is basically the pot/kettle/cooler you use to put your mash in. What's a mash? It's the grain you use to make wort. What's a wort? Wort's the sugary sweet liquid you're going to boil, add hops to, and eventually cool before putting yeast in.

 

[kottila]

Had a big party last week with 3 cornelius kegs with an IPA, a Wit and a Bitter. Due to time constraints and a lack of experience the beers were quite flat, but noone noticed after the first 30min. Next time we will have to reduce the alcohol percentage as 6-7 percent goes right to peoples heads and it's hard to keep track of your drinking when you're constantly refilling the same glass. I've stopped caring about creating complicated extreme beers and I'm now going for beer that is easy to drink, while still full of flavor.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Subscribed.


I've always wanted to get into this, but I don't know (yet) about getting into all these honey-raisin-brown-hefferwiezen-brown-ale-porter-double-half-caff-mocha beer varieties some people talk about. I'd like to clone some of my favorites, like Bass Ale, Taddy Porter, etc.

Thanks for the links. Those starter kits, especially the glass one from Austin are cheaper than I anticipated and just told the wife that's what I want for Christmas. I'm moving into a new house around that time with an unfinished basement. I'm pretty sure I could turn that into my brewing area.

A lot of these terms you guys are throwing around, I have no friggen clue what you're talking about. Splurge? mash-turn? Perhaps OP can get a link to a glossary added?

You'd definitely want to start with a basic kit like in the OP doing extracts.

The two beers you're talking about are both pretty easy - a porter much like Taddy Porter is covered in Jamil Zainasheff's Brewing Classic Styles and is given with an extract recipe. Bass Ale is just a typical British pale ale, not to difficult to do with extracts either. And as said above, there's a bunch of old English words that are used, but very few of them are used in extract brewing, they're mostly just old terms used in "mashing," which is the process for converting grains into sugar. The only weird terms for a beginner are "pitching yeast" (which means pouring the yeast into the wort) and "wort" which is a term for the sugary liquid that has no alcohol in it because there is no yeast in it yet. Feel free to ask if you have any questions about anything.

Had a big party last week with 3 cornelius kegs with an IPA, a Wit and a Bitter. Due to time constraints and a lack of experience the beers were quite flat, but noone noticed after the first 30min. Next time we will have to reduce the alcohol percentage as 6-7 percent goes right to peoples heads and it's hard to keep track of your drinking when you're constantly refilling the same glass. I've stopped caring about creating complicated extreme beers and I'm now going for beer that is easy to drink, while still full of flavor.

You can always just goose the CO2 pressure and shake the corny with the gas tube side down.

 

[kottila]

You can always just goose the CO2 pressure and shake the corny with the gas tube side down.

We did that and got sticky beer on the floor and broke a the regulator. Maybe we should've done it before we emptied one of the kegs.. I've used bottles on all my other brews, but bottling is so boring, so now I want my own kegs (and a new house so I can have a brewing room and a place for fridges and all the equipment)

 

[Of All Trades]

Depending on how you source your parts, converting all-grain can be relatively cheap or really expensive. HomeBrewTalk has a thread where they tell you how to get all the parts to convert a cooler into a mash-tun but honestly, its a huge headache trying to find all of the parts. It's way easier to just get one of the conversion kits from NB or MB and adding it to a cooler from home depot or Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart actually has some really decent cheap 48 qt. cooler with drains already on them for conversion.

The downside of course, is that all-grain isn't just setting up the mash-tun, it also requires getting an outside burner plus a big enough pot. Those can be done cheaper by using an aluminum pot and a cheaper-brand turkey fryer. Some people are still anti-aluminum, but honestly, most of the risks of aluminum have been debunked by science.

I built my first mash tun using those instructions and yes it's a pain to find the parts. 95% of them will be easy but then you'll be scrounging around trying to find washers that meet your specs or some other random thing, and it's never as good as what you hoped for. Fortunately I managed to later buy a couple modified beer kegs off craigslist so now I can mash some ungodly amount of grain if I want.

As for burners, Amazon sells Bayou Classics at good prices. Work great.

Given that most home wine I've seen is just buying a bunch of compressed grapes and pitching yeast into it, I'm a little sketchy on how much you can really play around with it the way you play around with meads and beers. Strangely, mead seems to be getting quite popular with make your own booze guys.

The variety comes in grape types and mix ratios, plus casking conditions. I think it's mostly less popular due to:

-it's much more satisfying to use off-the-vine grapes, which requires access to vineyards (I live in NorCal wine country so that's not a problem)
-equipment can get really expensive and I think it's hard to produce small batches (smaller than a barrel)
-takes a looooooong time before you get to drink anything. When I made wine with some friends (who had all the equipment) we crushed the grapes in September and bottled everything in October of the following year, and even then it's still a bit rough, whereas I brewed an IPA over Labor Day and will likely be kegging this weekend and drinking at Halloween. I have cases upon cases of Zinfandel, now, though.

 

[Stet]

What were you putting in the mead that made it expensive? Isn't it just water + honey and possibly some spices?

Just the honey. 2 bucks a pound for the cheapest stuff, and upwards of that for more interesting stock. Honey has less sugar in it than, say, molasses, so four pounds of honey at around twice the price of molasses will make only 3/4 the wort.

 

[sharkmuncher]

Subscribed.


I've always wanted to get into this, but I don't know (yet) about getting into all these honey-raisin-brown-hefferwiezen-brown-ale-porter-double-half-caff-mocha beer varieties some people talk about. I'd like to clone some of my favorites, like Bass Ale, Taddy Porter, etc.

Thanks for the links. Those starter kits, especially the glass one from Austin are cheaper than I anticipated and just told the wife that's what I want for Christmas. I'm moving into a new house around that time with an unfinished basement. I'm pretty sure I could turn that into my brewing area.

A lot of these terms you guys are throwing around, I have no friggen clue what you're talking about. Splurge? mash-turn? Perhaps OP can get a link to a glossary added?

I'll second the "How to Brew" link suggestion. Just that one resource is enough for most people to be able to make an above average beer.

You see a lot of the crazy beers in homebrewing, mostly because you can. The porter I did last night is for a festival, otherwise, there is no way I would finish a 5 gallon keg of chocolate hazelnut coffee porter on my own. It should be great as a 3 oz pour though.

The best 3 beers have made have been a simple IPA, a Centennial Blonde ale and a clone of Avery's Ellies brown, a pretty straight forward American brown. The "simple" beers are actually some of my favorite to make and having a 3.8-4% Scottish or Blonde on tap is one of the best parts of homebrewing for me.

 

[plasticpassion]

I've missed homebrewing since I moved to LA (smaller space = nowhere to put tons of bottles and gear). It was great enjoying brews that I had made though.

 

[Yaboosh]

I have been brewing for around seven years now. Homebrew can be just as good generally as commercial brew, and when you throw in your own personal biases/preferences it can mean that your beer will taste better to you than commercial stuff.

Kegging makes the entire experience much more enjoyable.

 

[kottila]

Kegging makes the entire experience much more enjoyable.

Washing and sanitizing(?) bottles for 40 liters of beer by myself. Never again!

 

[Angry Grimace]

Washing and sanitizing(?) bottles for 40 liters of beer by myself. Never again!

Yeah, I gave up bottling after three batches. Kegging really smooths out the whole process, particularly in that you can actually get consistent carbonation across your whole batch. With bottling, every once in a while I'd get a batch that was mystery carbed to either really high or really low levels.

 

[fenners]

Transferred my current brew to secondary today for dry-hopping. 4oz of whole leaf Centennial hops. This is loosely based on the recipe for the Stone 4th Anniversary IPA, but it turned out a little darker than I'd like & had trouble getting it down to the FG. Started at ~1.75, ended at 1.028. So a fair drop, but still a little sweeter than I'd like. The sample tasted fine

Going to bottle some of this to share at a convention in five weeks, the rest will get kegged of course.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Transferred my current brew to secondary today for dry-hopping. 4oz of whole leaf Centennial hops. This is loosely based on the recipe for the Stone 4th Anniversary IPA, but it turned out a little darker than I'd like & had trouble getting it down to the FG. Started at ~1.75, ended at 1.028. So a fair drop, but still a little sweeter than I'd like. The sample tasted fine

Going to bottle some of this to share at a convention in five weeks, the rest will get kegged of course.

Dry hopping whole leaves suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. Never again.

(at least doing it in the confines of a carboy. I put 3 oz. into a Pliny clone and oh god was it a pain to even get the cones in there)

 

[fenners]

Dry hopping whole leaves suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. Never again.

(at least doing it in the confines of a carboy. I put 3 oz. into a Pliny clone and oh god was it a pain to even get the cones in there)

Agreed. That's why I'm using a bucket instead of a carboy & the leaves all went into a grainbag

 

[Phobophile]

Wanna add Bev-Art's website to Chicago shops in the OP?

http://www.bev-art.com

 

[fat pat]

Looking to get a kegging setup done pretty soon. Is there any real difference between ball lock and pin lock? Any reason to go with one over the other?

 

[Captain Pants]

There is an unfinished room in my basement, that I think the previous owners were going to turn into a bathroom. As of today, it is now my fermenting/reading room. It is really nice to sit here and read, or browse GAF while listening to the bubbling. We've got the White House Honey Porter and an ESB fermenting right now.

 

[Angry Grimace]

My friend came over for the monday night game and was all excited to try out the three kegs of homebrew....annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd the CO2 was empty.

 

[Captain Pants]

My friend came over for the monday night game and was all excited to try out the three kegs of homebrew....annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd the CO2 was empty.

I HATE that. So frustrating.

 

[fenners]

Bottled my IPA today after six days of dry-hopping. Sample was pretty flavourful, but /still/ cloudier than I'd like, though it was the clearest beer I've made - used a whirfloc tablet + cold crashed it for 24 hours before bottling. Thinking about it, my hop bag did spill in the boil so that's likely the cause, right? Time to read up on techniques.

Still, six bombers for sharing with friends, and the rest kegged I've had a hard time making IPAs in the past, so I'm happy with the flavour/aroma of this so far.

If the kids behave, likely going to brew up some of that Whitehouse Honey Ale. Had the ingredients sitting there for a month (hops + yeast in the fridge of course!)

 

[Davedough]

I'm pretty sure I'll be getting the $80 starter kit for Christmas after talking to my wife about it. I thought about getting the Carboy setup, but I figure I can upgrade to that once I have some experience and feel like I want to go for a secondary fermentation.

In the picture above, are those stick on temperature gauges on the outside of your carboys? How accurate is the reading from that for temperature moderation?

And, out of all the reading I've been doing for something like a basic ale, let me see if I have the basic process down using malt extracts. (of course its not quite this simplified)

1. You slightly warm your malt extract so it flows easier while you get about a gallon of bottled water on to boil.
2. Remove from the burner and pour in the amount of malt extract that the recipe calls for, stirring while you pour (remove from the burner to prevent scorching and bad flavors)
3. Return to heat and bring back to boil. Once it reaches a boil, you add your hops and boil for an hour.
4. Strain your wort into your fermenting bucket and pitch (add) your yeast.
5. Affix your airlock and let it ferment for 2 weeks.
6. Boil some corn sugar and put it in your bottling bucket, then pour your fermented beer into the bottling bucket.
7. Rack (siphon) into your bottles, cap and store for another 2 weeks for carbonation.
8. Chill and pour into a glass, leaving a little bit in the bottle for yeast sediment.

Is that the basic process? I think out of all the reading I've been doing its starting to gel and I'll be able to hit the ground running when I get my kit. And yes, I know I didn't mention anything about sterilization in there and that is preached on every single article I've read.

 

[ChiTownBuffalo]

I am starting this to replicate my favorite, discontinued beers.

Fortunately, the old brewmaster was really nice/cool about giving me the recipes.

 

[kottila]

I have the impression that most americans use glass carboys, but I can't understand why.

They're dangerous, harder to clean and lets light in. Why not use the plastic "bucketd". The amount of air they let in so miniscule it would only be a problem when doing loong fermentations and they're much easier to store. What have I missed? I don't see the point in secondary fermentation either, unless your brewing on an industrial scalee

 

[Stet]

Oh good god. I pitched an all-grain last night with Safbrew T-58 and it went off like a rocket, but good LORD does it smell strongly of eggs. Apparently it's really common with this yeast, and it'll go away, but the whole room is off limits for a while.

 

[Bigfoot]

Yeah, I gave up bottling after three batches. Kegging really smooths out the whole process, particularly in that you can actually get consistent carbonation across your whole batch. With bottling, every once in a while I'd get a batch that was mystery carbed to either really high or really low levels.

How long does a keg keep before going bad? Is that one advantage of bottling or do they both last the same time?

I'm interested in doing home brew one day but I just don't have enough room. Maybe one day when I move...

 

[fenners]

How long does a keg keep before going bad? Is that one advantage of bottling or do they both last the same time?

I'm interested in doing home brew one day but I just don't have enough room. Maybe one day when I move...

A good number of my friends do 1 gallon batches these days, and a lot of homebrew store suppliers are providing equipment geared for it. Totally doable in an apartment & on a kitchen stove.

 

[fat pat]

Bottled my all-chinook APA yesterday and made some new thing.

New thing is a scotchy/stout/malty something beer. Just started grabbin stuff at the shop.

5 gal batch

6 lbs extra light DME
12oz 10L Caramel
8oz 120L Caramel
4oz Victory Malt
4oz Chocolate malt
4oz Roasted Barley

1 oz Northern Brewer @ 60
.5oz Fuggle @25
.5oz Fuggle @5

London ESB Wyeast

OG 1.060

 

[Bigfoot]

So would the Mr. Beer kit (http://www.mrbeer.com/category-exec/category_id/181) be a good way to get in to homebrewing if I just want to go with smaller batches? 5 gallons is too much for me to get in to with the space I have, but the Mr. Beer kits seems reasonable at 2 gallons. From what I've read, it also seems like you can use the Mr. Beer gear for some of the fancier recipes mentioned in this thread once you burn through the Mr. Beer recipes that come with it.

At the very least, it seems like Mr. Beer is a great way to try things out and see if I like it. Has anyone tried it?

 

[Stet]

I'm worried about my latest ferment. It's an all-grain scotch beer that converted and sparged wonderfully. I pitched a Safbrew strain (T-58) which within a few hours was bubbling like crazy and smelling like eggs, which apparently is characteristic of the yeast, but the bubbling stopped after about 40 hours. Since then the bucket lid is bulging like crazy, but I haven't seen any bubbling -- though I know the airlock isn't clogged because if I press down on the lid it bubbles with the pressure.

It's been a week and I'll take a reading tomorrow (OG was 1.067) though I'm concerned it's stuck.

 

[Jamesways]

Fuck yeah!

My Dead Ringer Two Hearted clone is ready this weekend, and taste testing it compared to a Two Hearted, I'm really impressed. It turned out damn close. Great aftertaste, just a slightly different hop note. Love that Centennial taste!

 

[Himynameischris]

Awesome thread, I've been considering making my own brew for awhile now I think I'm going to seriously start looking into it. I have a few friends who have done it and they've made some very good beer,

 

[Yaboosh]

So would the Mr. Beer kit (http://www.mrbeer.com/category-exec/category_id/181) be a good way to get in to homebrewing if I just want to go with smaller batches? 5 gallons is too much for me to get in to with the space I have, but the Mr. Beer kits seems reasonable at 2 gallons. From what I've read, it also seems like you can use the Mr. Beer gear for some of the fancier recipes mentioned in this thread once you burn through the Mr. Beer recipes that come with it.

At the very least, it seems like Mr. Beer is a great way to try things out and see if I like it. Has anyone tried it?

No. Go with a real kit with smaller vessels.

 

[fenners]

What Yaboosh said. All the big supply places have 1 gallon equipment kits these days & recipes to match.

Got the White House Honey All sitting in primary & I'm /so/ tempted to rush it & get it kegged today so I can have a (green) pint of it on Tuesday. Need to resist. Need to resist.

 

[Yaboosh]

Bottled my IPA today after six days of dry-hopping. Sample was pretty flavourful, but /still/ cloudier than I'd like, though it was the clearest beer I've made - used a whirfloc tablet + cold crashed it for 24 hours before bottling. Thinking about it, my hop bag did spill in the boil so that's likely the cause, right? Time to read up on techniques.

Still, six bombers for sharing with friends, and the rest kegged I've had a hard time making IPAs in the past, so I'm happy with the flavour/aroma of this so far.

If the kids behave, likely going to brew up some of that Whitehouse Honey Ale. Had the ingredients sitting there for a month (hops + yeast in the fridge of course!)

No, your hop bag spilling in the boil likely has no impact on the clarity of your beer.

Whirlfloc is a very important part of clarity, as is adequate calcium levels in your water and, depending on yeast strain used, using the proper finings after you are done.

Next time, cold crash, and once it is down to temperature (mid 30s ideally) add some Biofine Clear or gelatin. You will be able to see your beer clarify if you are in a carboy.

 

[thcsquad]

Had a couple bottles of my extract ESB with Hazelnut. Carastan and Optic grains steeped before boiling, then I used Horizon and Willamette hops and Windsor yeast. It's been bottle conditioning for a week, but I wanted to make sure there were no off flavors and I'm brewing again this weekend and thus need to start emptying these bottles ASAP.

Pretty good. It's not as hoppy as I was expecting, but that's not a huge problem. The hazelnut definitely comes through in the smell, and when you first take a sip, but it kind of goes away while it's in your mouth and gets taken over by the rest of the beer. I'm fine with this, as I want it to stay drinkable as opposed to being more of a dessert/sampling beer.

Also, I'm making a coffee stout next. Anybody made one yet? I've heard of many different ways of infusing the coffee. My current plan is the cold brew it for a day beforehand and then add it at some point. I don't have a secondary fermenter so it's either during primary or right before bottling. I'd ideally like it to infuse more deeply into the beer than I've seen with flavors added right before bottling (like this hazelnut), so I'm thinking of doing it for primary. But I'm open to any advice.

 

[fenners]

No, your hop bag spilling in the boil likely has no impact on the clarity of your beer.

Whirlfloc is a very important part of clarity, as is adequate calcium levels in your water and, depending on yeast strain used, using the proper finings after you are done.

Next time, cold crash, and once it is down to temperature (mid 30s ideally) add some Biofine Clear or gelatin. You will be able to see your beer clarify if you are in a carboy.

Got a bucket of ale sitting in my kegerator right now to cool down & crash. Do I need to rehydrate the gelatin with some boiling or cold water? Or just add the finings to the bucket?

 

[Angry Grimace]

Just did a Pumpkin Spiced Porter and it was actually one of the easiest brew days I've done despite the theoretical horror of using pumpkin in the mash. A trick I used was to dissolve the mashed pumpkin in water heated to the same temp as the strike water (since I couldn't figure out how to calculate it in a strike calculator).

Got a bucket of ale sitting in my kegerator right now to cool down & crash. Do I need to rehydrate the gelatin with some boiling or cold water? Or just add the finings to the bucket?

You need to "bloom" the gelatin by dissolving it in very hot, but not boiling water. It will congeal and be useless if you boil it. Generally, I just put it in water in a small pot and then bring it up until there are bubbles starting to form but its not really that close to boiling - the temp you're looking for is about 170-180. I used a thermometer to see what that "looked" like and now I just eyeball it.

The package of gelatin I used (you can use any old plain gelatin but I bought mine at the brew store since I was there) says to use 1 tsp. and 1/2 of a pint of water.

 

[thcsquad]

Got the ingredients for the coffee stout today:

1lb roasted barley
1/2 lb crystal 80
1/4 lb chocolate malt

3 lb dark LME, 3lb golden light DME

1 oz Nugget hops for bittering
1/2 oz Saaz for flavor
1/2 oz Saaz for aroma

Nottingham yeast

Plan is to add half of the cold-brewed coffee at flameout and the other half after the vigorous fermentation (a few days) is done

 

[Bigfoot]

No. Go with a real kit with smaller vessels.

What Yaboosh said. All the big supply places have 1 gallon equipment kits these days & recipes to match.

Got the White House Honey All sitting in primary & I'm /so/ tempted to rush it & get it kegged today so I can have a (green) pint of it on Tuesday. Need to resist. Need to resist.

Ha ha... might be too late. I didn't see any replies right away, and my wife and I stop buying things for ourselves in November, so I put it on my Christmas list. I have a feeling she already ordered me a Mr. Beer, but I'll update my Christmas list just in case.

I did do some reading and it sounds like a Mr. Beer vessel is still a good fermentor at least (after all, it isn't much different than a bucket), so after using up the recipes that come with it, I'll visit a homebrew store and get some good ingredients to use in the Mr. Beer keg. If that doesn't turn out well, I'll look at getting some other equipment. I guess I should have checked this thread last week...

 

[Angry Grimace]

Got the ingredients for the coffee stout today:

1lb roasted barley
1/2 lb crystal 80
1/4 lb chocolate malt

3 lb dark LME, 3lb golden light DME

1 oz Nugget hops for bittering
1/2 oz Saaz for flavor
1/2 oz Saaz for aroma

Nottingham yeast

Plan is to add half of the cold-brewed coffee at flameout and the other half after the vigorous fermentation (a few days) is done

Probably too late for this, but don't add coffee at flameout. Cold-steep it in the refrigerator and then pour the concentrated coffee in. Adding coffee at flameout will result in a more acidic product than you might want.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

I have the impression that most americans use glass carboys, but I can't understand why.

They're dangerous, harder to clean and lets light in. Why not use the plastic "bucketd". The amount of air they let in so miniscule it would only be a problem when doing loong fermentations and they're much easier to store. What have I missed? I don't see the point in secondary fermentation either, unless your brewing on an industrial scalee

Personally, I use the glass carboys because I like to see what's going on inside. I keep them covered with a black t-shirt most of the time, to prevent light from getting in. I've used buckets a few times, and they work fine too, just not as cool looking...

I only do secondaries if I am adding ingredients to a beer after fermentation or if I'm doing a really big beer. I don't know why so many of the kits from Northern and other companies are still talking about doing a secondary on the majority of their beers, it's totally not necessary in my experience.

I am going to try to do my first lager this winter. Our basement can get to the mid 50's in the colder months, but I'm thinking that won't be enough. I may have to clear out the basement fridge and attach my temperature controller to it to get to proper lagering temperatures. Does anyone here have any experience lagering a beer at the mid 50's? Would it impact the quality significantly?

 

[thcsquad]

Probably too late for this, but don't add coffee at flameout. Cold-steep it in the refrigerator and then pour the concentrated coffee in. Adding coffee at flameout will result in a more acidic product than you might want.

You're actually not too late (various things delayed it until tomorrow), but also misreading my recipe. All coffee entering the brew is cold-brewed. No coffee beans or grounds are touching the brew at flameout or any other time, and from what I understand the acidity comes from heating those, not the cold-brewed result.

I got the idea from this response to the Stackexchange question I asked on this very subject:

http://homebrew.stackexchange.com/questions/7952/adding-coffee-without-secondary

Anyway, I've had this cold-brewed coffee in the fridge for a week, and I'm wondering if that's too long. I might make a new batch tonight and use that tomorrow instead.