Q: In making your own brew, how does the amount of yeast added affect the final product? If you are to add 5g to a 5-gallon, what happens if you only add 2.5g?
A: Its best to add 8 oz. (227g) for every 5 gallons, this will provide the optimum amount of yeast cells to avoid a long lag time (should not go over 24 hours). If you were to add less yeast to your brew it wouldn't give the yeast enough time to propagate allowing bacteria or bad yeast cells to ruin your batch. It only takes one bacterial cell for every 1,000 yeast cells to be considered a bad batch. Cheers Brew Dude

Q: I have only made 7 or 8 batches of brew. Obviously, some were better than others, but of those batches that have survived my frequent "taste tests" to still be in existance after 2 months, have developed a sour taste. They were fine during the first 1 to 5 weeks or so. I have generaly been using malt extract for bottling. What am I doing wrong?
A: The Sour taste is most likely from a Bacterial infection. Bacteria Multiples faster then the Yeast cells, so I'm thinking that it may be in the bottles you are storing the beer in. Its not in the Primary because you would have sour beer right away. It could even be in the caps, or priming sugar you use. The key to good brewing is cleanliness. Use a good sanitizer on the bottles and caps, for the priming sugar boil 1 cup of water and add the priming sugar to it. Cover it and let it cool before adding it to the brew.Cheers Brew Dude

Q: I've got a question about finings .....
I'm told that finings are a fish product - could you clarify?
Cheers - I was having a row about it with a vegetarian friend of mine.
A: Fining is a term which is used in the brewing process. It is a clarifying process that adds organic or mineral settling agents which coagulate impurities, yeast, and other suspended material in the secondary fermentation. The specific Finning agent you are referring to is called Isinglass, which is made from the swim bladder of Sturgeon fish. Cheers Brew Dude

Q: Dear Brew Dude, I just spent the last 30 minutes reviewing your Q & As and was very impressed by your considerable knowledge of homebrews! In fact, it left me with questions that I would have never even thought to ask. I hope you don't mind tackling the following five questions.
1. My original question was about the accuracy of the airlock to determine when fermentation is complete. Usually for the first three days, the thing bubbles and bounces like crazy. Then by the fourth and fifth day there is little or no activity. Is this a good sign that on the sixth/seventh day I can move onto bottling? Or are Specific Gravity readings really the only way to make this determination? Is it OK to be a day or two late on bottling?
2. The next few questions stem from reading your website. You mentioned that Corn Sugar can cause beer to taste "cidery" but this is the only thing I have ever been told to use. Your suggestion was to use pale malt extract (I assume this is done at bottling time), if I substituted this for the Corn Sugar would I notice a difference. And if so, why?
3. On at least two occasions you recommended using two cans of Extract. Is that the Malt Extract can or the other can that comes with kits? And how many pounds do you recommend, i have seen cans in two different sizes. Again, why do you make this recommendation, it seems like an expensive proposition if one can of extract seems to do the trick.
4. I may be overly obsessed with temperature because i live in Central, NY where the temperature changes by the minute. If you are going to run the risk of the wort getting too warm (keeping it in a closet) or getting two cold (keeping it near a door or window) - which is the lesser of the two evils? And what temperature takes the wort to a point of no return?
5. You mentioned shaking the fermenter after adding the yeast instead of stirring it. If you are using one of those 5 gallon white plastic pails, isn't this difficult to accomplish? It's awkward & heavy!!! Wouldn't a gentle stir accomplish the same thing? Thanks for solving these nagging beer questions!
A: Let me answer these in order:
1.) If you use a plastic bucket to ferment in you can't see the kreusen and the yeast sediment the same as if you'd have used a glass carboy. The only empirical method to determine when fermentation is done is by watching the bubbles. I always give my beer at least an extra week in the fermenter after fermentation has subsided before consider bottling it. This gives the yeast a bit of time to reabsorb or breakdown off flavors that exist in young beer. Using a hydrometer would be the next step in determining if the beer is ready to bottle. Use a Wine Thief to get a sample in your hydrometer tube and see if it's where it needs to be. After you've bottled the beer be sure to let it condition for a month or two so that the flavor is even more smoothed out and the carbonation is complete.
2) The dry malt extract will add a malt flavor and have a bit of residual sweetness that I find more pleasing than using corn sugar for priming. You need to use more though to get the same level of carbonation. Always weigh your ingredients - never use volume (cups, tsp., etc.).
3) More extract means more flavor & more alcohol. Using just one kit almost always leaves me with a mediocre beer. In most of the recipes I spell out using unhopped extract or a combination of specific types of kits so that you get enough hop flavor without ending up with too sweet of a beer after fermentation. To make an average beer you need 7 lbs. of liquid extract for just 5 gallons of beer. By using a good portion of light extract you can count of a nice clean balanced finish to your homebrew.
4) Go buy a larger picnic cooler that's about 72 quarts in size. Get two short chunks of 2" x 4" wood. Turn the cooler on end with the drain hole pointed skyward. Put the wood on each side of the handle. You now have the "Poor Man's Fidgie" Use this as a place to ferment your beer in any weather. If it's hot outside you can cool your beer by adding a few plastic water bottles that you filled with tap water and frozen. Switching out 4 liters of ice 3 times a day gets my beer to ferment at 48 degrees when it's 104 in my garage. In the winter the heat of the fermentation will keep the beer warm in the beginning. You may need to add a heating pad to help out on cold nights. If the fermentation gets rippin' you can run a 1/2" blow off tube out through the drain hole to a mason jar that can sit in the handle on the topside. All the guys in my homebrew club use this trick!!
5) Oxygenating your yeast can't be under emphasized in my opinion. If you can get an aeration stone and an aquarium pump you can aerate your wort properly in 30 minutes or so. By using a Benzomatic tank the job is done in 1-1/2 minutes. Shaking can take hours! Stirring doesn't work at all. Invest the 10 to 30 dollars and your yeast will reward you with better tasting, more fully fermented beers.
Thanks for the good questions! BrewDude

Q: Beer Dude, I've recently read about the history of Brewing and found that sugar was used in the beer making process. Is that still going on today? I don't see sugar as a listed ingredient, but is it used to make beer? If sugar is used, are there any beers that don't use sugar to make their beer? I've heard that beer has changed through the years, I don't get it. I suppose that's more than one question, but I'd appreciate whatever you know about the sugar/beer connection.thanks
A: The addition of processed sugar is still a common practice in England and in some of the struggling micro breweries here in America. Belgian Candy sugar is another type of sugar commonly used in making many of the Belgian style ales. The macro breweries (Bud-Miller-Coors) add starch in the form of corn or rice (Coors actually adds corn sugar). Processed sugar and adjuncts like corn or rice can be used as either a cheap source of fermentables or to lighten up the color, flavor or body of a beer. Most any US micro brewed beer or German made beer will not contain any processed sugar. Hope this helps, BrewDude

Q: What effect would the use of purified water in the brewing process have on the finished product?
A: Purified water will not work in all grain brewing. If you use it to make an extract based recipe you'll be minimizing the hop flavor substantially and the malt flavor somewhat. Try using your local tap water after it has been passed through an activated charcoal filter. It's cheap and probably tastes ok after filtering. It'll also contain the mineral necessary to bring out the flavors in your beer. Try getting Dave Miller or Greg Noonan's books to get a better idea of how all the mineral ions work to improve the flavor of your beer. Good Luck, BrewDude

Q: How do I calculate for SRM or EBC?
A: The formula for SRM is as follows... (°L of grain x pounds of grain)/gallons of beer. Do this for each of your grains and then add up all of the totals. EBS is calculated by taking your SRM and multiplying by 2.65 and then subtract 1.2. This formula is only approximate but it is very close.

Q: hi brew dude how r ya, I'm doing a school assignment on whether or not temperature affects fermentation(my example is the fermentation of sucrose). I was wondering at what sort of temperatures does the yeast atalyse the reaction the best? Thank you for you time any help you can give me will be much appreciated.
A: Temperature definitely affects the fermentation process. When yeast is in a warmer environment it will ferment faster because its metabolism is working faster. Different yeast strains will have different optimum temperature ranges. In brewing beer the optimum temp is the one that results in the best tasting beers. With Lager yeast strains this is generally between 45 and 55°F. With Ale strains the temperature range is between 65 and 75°F. There are other strains used in making dairy products, bread, medicinal alcohol and various other foods and they all have their own different optimum temperature ranges which result in the best taste or the most amount of alcohol production. Most yeast will die above 120°F but some "wild" strains can survive at even this temp but it probably isn't an optimum temp. Hope this helps! BrewDude p.s. I'm doin' fine - Thanks

Q: My brother and I brew 15 gal. batches. I was wondering if It's really necessary to crash cool a home-brew right at the end of the boil? I'm wondering if it would add any off tastes. My brother thinks we have to and someone else told me we shouldn't.
A: Crash cooling at the end of the boil is THE best way to go, so that you get clean looking and clean flavored beer. You'll get better precipitation of the hot break and better formation of the cold break. Use 1 tsp. of Irish moss with 10 minutes left in the boil. Presoak the Irish moss in chlorine free water for 15 minutes to rehydrate it before you toss it in the wort. If you really want to make a clean beer I also recommend that you follow Dave Miller's suggestion of racking the beer off of the cold break 8 to 12 hours after you've pitched your yeast. Once you see the tell tale signs that fermentation is beginning rack the beer to another fermenter and try to keep splashing to an absolute minimum so that you don't reintroduce oxygen and confuse the yeast. I have accidentally stalled fermentation because the yeast didn't know if it was time to multiply or to ferment when the new oxygen was introduced at this stage of fermentation. Good Luck! BrewDude

Q: I need information on how to malt corn. I am looking to make a gluten free beer. I know the basics but the specifics can ruin you.
A: There is an excellent web page on Chicha Beer at http://xb-70.com/beer/chicha that not only explains malting but also which type of corn to use, where to buy it and how to make chicha. I highly recommend this page to all brewers who are inquisative about fermented beverages in general too. Good Luck!

Q: Dear Brewdude, I know you can brew beer with coffee, why not with tea? What would be the best way for me to add tea to (a five gallon) batch of beer? The style I'd probably use would be a brown ale. What would you recommend? Thanks
A: I don't recommend using tea in any beer because of the heavy tannin flavor in tea. I have read about how a Japanese homebrewer makes her beer with tea and barley. Her recipe is from the Zymurgy special edition 1996 magazine, and is available in the WhatAlesYou.com Beer forum.

Q: Beer Dude, When home brewing a 5 gallon kit and am adding the yeast is it best to stir the beer gently after the yeast is added or do I just add the yeast and that's it before sealing the fermenter? When adding the corn sugar before bottling, do I again stir it up before bottling?
A: I don't like using dried yeast - try White Labs instead. If you use dry yeast just sprinkle it in and then shake your fermenter vigorously for 20 full minutes, wait and hour and shake it again for 20 minutes. Adding lots of oxygen is vital for healthy yeast and good fermentations. If you can get any oxygenation stone and are using pure oxygen(benzomatic canister) then only oxygenate gently for 1 minute after adding your yeast and again an hour later. When you add your priming sugar you should use boiled water. Dissolve the priming sugar into the water and then pour the hot mixture into your priming bucket. Siphon your beer into the bucket with the hose pointing along the side so that the beer gently spirals around on its own. Don't stir or splash your beer after fermentation is complete. You will make it go stale quicker if you do. Good Luck, BrewDude

Q: Ever since I tasted a microbrew at the Florida Brewers Guild tasting event, I have been looking for a close recipe...and frankly have been wondering how they pulled it off. It was coconut ale, it had pronounced coconut flavor with what tasted like Cascades or Willamette, for bitterness. But had excellent head retention...that is what I was wondering...how does it keep it's head in the presence of all that coconut oil? I've tried toasting flaked coconut and adding during the mash. But it hardly has any effect on the flavor. I'm afraid if I went overboard and added coconut extract it would kill any carbonation. So what I'm looking for is two things: (1) a coconut beer recipe. And (2) and explanation of how it works..ie. the oil and head issue. Any help you can render would be appreciated.
A: I finally have figured out how the coconut flavor is put into the brew....extract. If your local homebrew store doesn't carry it try a candy or cake making supply store. I tasted a wonderful coconut porter at the 10th annual Southern California Homebrewer's Festival this year. I got the info second hand from one of the other brewers at the booth serving the beer but I believe it will work just fine without affecting the head retention of the beer. If you add enough chocolate malt you can get the flavor of a Mounds candy bar. Good luck, Brewdude

Q: I am doing research into fermentation. Could you tell me the difference between European and American beer and the beer making process? Could you discuss the ingredients, manufacturing process and such? Also is there a web site or research site online, which could help me with this? Thanks for your help, Jim
A: The big differences between American Brewing and European brewing is our usage of rice and maize. All of the major brewers in the USA use one or the other to cut down the body of the beer and so that they can use cheap, high protein 6-row malted barley. European brewers use low protein, higher costing 2-row barley. The types of hops used in the continental lagers and American light lagers are usually the same varieties - all Noble hops. When you get into any of the beers that are not of the light lager variety all bets are off. Americans are no traditionalists some times and very traditional other times. Europeans make a few styles that aren't really made in America too like Berliner Weiss Beer or Sahti from Scandinavia. You could (and many have) written entire books discussing all of the likenesses and the differences between brewing in various places on this planet so I can't go too much into depth. The main difference is the source of fermentable sugars that I mentioned above. Good luck, BrewDude

Q: Hey Brewdude: I just bought my first beer kegging set-up. I have been wondering where to put the co2 tank. In the fridge with the keg or outside and run a hose through the wall? I am hesitant to drill a hole, but will if I really have to. Thanks.
A: I recommend that you put the bottle of CO2 outside the fridge and run a line through to the kegs. I don't know of any modern full sized upright Refrigerators that have any coils in the sides that might be damaged by drilling through them for a CO2 piping. I use 1/4 brass pipe with a barb fitting on each end and a couple of washers to take up any slack between the barb fitting and the inside of the fridge. I know of others that simply drill a hole and run reinforced vinyl hose through, but I worry about wear and tear on the hose as the metal side of the fridge wears on the hose. I'd also recommend a manifold with separate valves for each keg like Banner Equipment sells. You can shut off any the CO2 line to any keg to isolate a lead if needed. Banner also has secondary valves available if you want to have different serving pressure & carbonation levels for your beers. Banner is a national bar supply company based in Chicago that has very reasonable prices - order a copy of their catalog. You can reach them at 800-621-4625. Good luck BrewDude

Q: Two questions for you Beerdude.Is there any fermentation that goes on once you bottle? It when I compare originall gravity and my final specific gravity, I am getting an alcohol percentage in the 3.5 range--but the beer carries a rating of about 4-5%.
Is adding extra corn sugar up to 20% of the fermentable sugars along with an extra packet of yeast the best way to increase your alcohol percentage? Thanks beerdude.
A: There definitely IS fermentation after bottling if you carbonate your beer by adding priming sugar when you bottle. If you force carbonate in a keg and use a counter pressure bottle filler then there is little to no further fermentation in the bottle. If you use the typical amounts of 3.75oz.(wt. not volume) of dry malt extract or 2.75 oz. of priming sugar to prime an ale you'll only increase your alcohol level in the fully carbonated beer by about 0.2%.
The best way to increase alcohol is to start with more malt - e.g. a higher starting gravity - and to use a more attenuative yeast. Wyeast British ale yeast is excellent for ales. For lagers I recommend using White Labs German lager yeast, allowing the beer to nearly finish fermentation and then rousing the yeast to get increased attenuation. I don't recommend trying to "doctor" a beer's alcohol after fermentation has started. You can do it but you must be careful to not introduce oxygen. I have added a pound of honey that was dissolved into water that I had boiled for 30 minutes and then boiling the mixture for 5 additional minutes. I added the entire mixture into a batch of beer that had just been racked into a secondary fermenter. I poured slowly and used a sanitized funnel to minimize any splashing. The one 1 lb. of honey took a beer that had started at 1.050 to an adjusted starting gravity of 1.055. Hope this helps! BrewDude

Q: Could you please explain about the different types of malt. (Ex: 2 row and 6 row malts) Thanks
A: All barley stalks have 6 vertical rows of "flowers" on them. The 2-row or 6 row designation simply has to do with how many fertile "flower" rows a stalk of barley has. When only 2 are fertile then it will only grow 2 large rows of barley on opposite sites of the stalk. When 6 are fertile then all 6 will become barley kernels - more barley per acre but each kernel is smaller to fit in the same room as the 2 kernels on a 2-row variety. The larger kernel has less protein per lb. of kernels because the core is bigger and weighs more that a tiny kernel from the 6 row barley stalk. Lower protein levels is better for home brewers. With high protein levels there can be problems with haze. large brewing companies like A-B and Miller reduce the overall protein levels in their beers by using some rice or corn which have sugar but no protein and are cheap to buy. hope this helps, BrewDude

Q: First I would like to say, great site. My question is can you explain "mashing" and the mashing process. I am a fairly novice brewer and basically brew with extracts. I want to take the next step and start using grains. I have read some detailed mashing instructions that talks about temperatures and times, but I never really got the idea of what is supposed to be happening and what the theoretical process is. Can you explain that to me?
A: Mashing can be viewed in a very simply way. The main action that homebrewers are interested is the breaking down of complex(large) carbohydrates in to simple(small) sugars that the yeast can eat during fermentation. There are 2 main enzymes that are present in the husk of the grain which will do this automatically at the right temperature and at the right pH. They are activated when hot water is added to the MALTED barley. Unmalted barley won't work as your main grain because the enzymes are present and the carbohydrates are too complex until the barley is malted. Beta amylase works BEST at the lower temp range of 126 to 149°F and Alpha amylase works BEST at the higher temp range of 149 to 158°F. A nice middle temp. of 149 to 154°F will let both enzymes work at the same time and speed the breakdown of the carbohydrates a.k.a scarification. A dryer beer with more alcohol is made by mashing at the lower end - i.e. 140 or 150. A sweeter less alcoholic beer is made by mashing at the higher end of the range - i.e. 154 or 155. Of course, the more malt you add in your mash the more alcohol you CAN have in your beer and the sugar that will be left at the finish of fermentation. With mash temp regulation you are skewing your particular recipe to be a dryer beer or a sweeter beer. There are other enzymes that you can use at even lower temperatures if you need to reduce large protein in your wheat beers than use a protein rest at about 128°F. This will break large proteins into medium size ones that will help with head retention. If your recipe is almost entirely 2row barley/malt then you should not use a protein rest - it will be a waste of time. If you are using a high percentage of flaked adjuncts like flake barley, flaked corn, rolled or flaked oats you will want to incorporate a mash rest at 104°F to break down lipids(fats) that will tend to gum up your mash at lautering time resulting in the dreaded stuck mash. Most ales and lagers can be done with a simple temp rest infusion style mash. Don't sweat the other stuff unless you are making a more advanced recipe or very unusual beer. I almost always use a single temp rest between 150 and 153°F. If I am making a bitter I will mash in at 150 to 151°F and then let the mash cool to 148 or 149. The key is temp maintenance. Use insulation like the aluminum coated bubble wrap from Home Depot to make a blanket for your mashing pot or use and ice chest for your mash pot. If you mash your grains on the stove check the temp and stir up the mash every 10 to 15 min. Use a med. flame and CONSTANT stirring to warm the mash a degree or two if it has fallen. good luck, BrewDude

Q: Dear brewdude, I have a question concerning the making of beer. What happens after you add the yeast and the aerate and put it into a closed container? Why do you use an airlock container? What happens to the glucose? And why will fermentation end? Thank you
A: The first thing that happens is that the yeast that was pitched into the wort (unfermented beer) will take up the free oxygen. The yeast used the oxygen in the production of sterols. This is very important in the budding or growth phase of fermentation. According to Greg Noonan in his book New Brewing Lager Beer: "In an oxygenated wort the yeast splits the sugar in such a fashion that it produces more C02 than alcohol. The carbonic gas rising to the surface quickly forms a blanket above the ferment, chick insulates it from airborne infection." Glucose is metabolized AEROBICALLY along with glycogen and fatty acids during this first stage of fermentation. When the yeast reaches the right density it then switches to ANAEROBIC metabolism, which produces the alcohol. Both of these metabolic pathways are in every biology textbook. Fermentation will end when the yeast has used up most of the available glucose and other sugars in the wort. Some yeast will stop fermenting early because of alcohol toxicity, temperature fluctuation (to the cold side) or the reintroduction of free oxygen. It is hard for brewing yeast to switch from fermentation mode to budding mode and then back to fermentation mode. They prefer a resting period. There are many kinds of yeast used in fermentation. Only two strain families are used for beer brewing; Saccharomyces Cerevisiae (ale yeast)and Saccharomyces Uvarum(lager yeast) other strains are used when making wine, yogurt, etc. For more good information on fermentation check out Greg Noonan's book that I mentioned above. It can be very technical but it is also very informative. The book is available from any good home brewing store including Sierra Madre Brewing Co. - one of the sponsors of our web page. Good Luck, Brewdude

Q: Hi Brewdude I have a couple of questions.

1st - I usually keg my homebrew both from scratch and from kits. Lately I cannot get the beer to clear. I have left it longer in the carboy after a second transfer but no go. I use to use gelatin or polyclar but not regularly, It did not seem to make a difference when I forgot to use either. What's wrong ? It tastes fine but very annoying. When I leave it poured into a glass or clear bottle it takes about a day to clear with some sediment in the bottom. Help!!

2nd - A friend of mine has purchased a Beer Machine, against my better judgment, But finds the selection and availability of the kits to be so-so. Is there anyway to adjust a regular kit his machine. I suggested using half the regular kit but I wasn't quite sure about the amount of yeast to use? Thanks
A: On your Haze: Sounds like you have yeast that won't flocculate. Try the following: it has worked for me. Chill the beer for a week at 40 degrees. Purge all the Oxygen and pressurize it to 10 p.s.i. at the END of the week. Make up a solution using a huge dose of Polyclar. Boil a pint of water for 20 min. and then let it cool for 20 more minutes. Put 2 tablespoons of polyclar in a seal able container. Add the hot water and shake vigorously. Add the SHAKEN HOT mixture to your keg. Purge the oxygen again and pressurize it again then roll the keg around for 5 minutes. Shake up the keg every 20 minutes for 3 hours - I mean shake it, roll it really agitate it. Keep the keg in the frig between shakings. After the 3 hour program let the beer sit still in the fridge for a week. Pressurize it to 10 p.s.i. and pour off a cup of beer. Let the beer sit another week. Pressurize it to 10 p.s.i. and pour off another cup of beer. Vent the keg so that it is at 4 p.s.i. and pour some beer drink. The yeast and other haze compounds should have settled out. The pouring off of 2 cups of beer will clear any sediment from near the dispensing tube in the keg. Don't carbonate your beer until the end of the 2 weeks. The polyclar will work better in un-carbonated beer. Carbonate your beer by keeping it under constant pressure for 2 to 3 days at 15 to 20 p.s.i. Your head retention will be better with this slow carbonating method too.

On your 2nd question: Use one packet of dried yeast for the Beer Machine and 2 per 5 or 6 gallons of home brew. If the capacity of the Beer Machine is around 2 to 2.5 gallons then 1/2 of a normal kit is the right amount of ingredients to use. good luck, BrewDude

Q: What is the best temperature to store homebrew after it has been bottled? I understand that it needs to ferment 2 or more weeks before "lagering." I have been keeping mine in our closet, which in winter, gets down to about 50 degrees. Is that to low a temperature for the fermenting process to take place?
A: A good temp for ales while bottle conditioning/carbonating is around 65°F. Lagers can do the same thing at 58 to 60°F. Some yeasts surprise me at how low of a temp they can go and still remain active enough to bottle condition/carbonate a beer. Open a bottle of your beer. If it doesn't seem done carbonated at the end of 3 weeks move the rest of the beer to a warmer spot. Shake the bottles up-side-down a little and then let the beer sit another 2 weeks. This should reactivate the yeast by getting it up off the bottom of your bottles where it has been resting. Good luck, BrewDude

Q: I think I added my yeast to my wort at too high a temperature. It's been 48 hours and I still can't see any action in my fermenter. Am I being too impatient or did I do serious damage to my yeast? Can I add more yeast now that the wort has cooled off or is it ruined?
A: If you don't see any activity, no signs of Kreusen left over on the side of your fermenter then you can still add a couple of packets of yeast. Some beers will ferment so fast that people don't see it. After fermentation is done you will see a ring around your fermenter at the top of the beer. Keep your fermenter sealed via an airlock and you should be ok for a few days while you wait for the beer to start fermenting. If you add the new yeast make sure the area around the fermenter is clean and draft free. Pitch the new yeast and seal up your fermenter then shake it all up a bit to introduce some more oxygen into your wort to promote yeast growth. Don't add your yeast until the wort is below 80 degrees! Ferment below 70°F if you can. You should see signs of fermentation within 48 hours. Be sure to use a good liquid yeast like White Labs or 2 packets of dried yeast and to oxygenate your yeast. Constant shaking for 10 minutes and then 2 hours later for 10 minutes more will usually do but using any oxygenation stone and pure oxygen is really the best way to go! Good luck, BrewDude

Q: Hey Brewdude, I am a new homebrewer and I was wondering, I fermented my beer in a primary fermenter for a week then I transferred it over to the carboy where it has been sitting for 5 days, my question is I read you talking about letting it sit for a extra couple of weeks before bottling to clear the haziness of the beer is this true? and second of all how do I get rid of the sediment in the bottom of the bottles would waiting a while till bottling help in this problem as well, I'd like to thank you in advance for answering my question.
A: The sediment at the bottom of bottles of homebrew is mostly yeast. By giving your beer a couple to 3 weeks to mature after fermentation is completed you will be able to siphon your beer out and leave more yeast behind. You will have more than enough yeast to carbonate your beer and less sediment. I also recommend bottling in larger bottles whenever possible so that you get a larger percentage of beer out before the sediment can make its way to the bottle opening. Good luck, BrewDude

Q: Hey beer man, I'm a homebrewer and have been kegging my beer for 2 years and I recently got my CO2 tank filled at a welding supply store. I asked for food grade CO2 and his reply was "This stuff is 99% pure, it will be just fine for dispensing beverages". As far as I know this tank of CO2 is NOT considered food grade and I'm hesitant to use it to force carbonate my next batch of beer. Am I better off getting some food grade CO2 from another source or do you think what I have will be OK? I'm worried about bacteria and possibly an undesirable taste. Thanks for your advice. Joe
A: I have a couple of guys in my homebrew club who've been going to welding supply shops for their C02 for years. You should be just fine with the gas that you've already bought. These guys make good beer and I've never tasted an off flavor from the CO2. I get my CO2 from a shop that fills fire extinguishers - they also service beverage accounts with the same CO2! good luck BrewDude

Q: I have a wort chiller made from a commercial copper heat exchanger. It worked great at first but now is nearly totally clogged. Due to the construction, I cannot run a brush or ream through it. I can get water to go through OK under faucet pressure, but when draining my hot wort through it, it takes about 90 minutes to drain a 15 gallon batch. We have tried running TSP and we have tried an acid-based drain cleaner. Neither has really worked well. What is the best chemical process to use to clean this?
A: The easiest non-caustic cleaner to use is PBW by 5-star. It is avail from many homebrew supply stores. Using caustic cleaners is always an option but it is dangerous. Once you have your chiller cleaned out I recommend you do what has kept my chiller clean and sanitary for many years.
1.) Buy a bottle of BLC (beer line cleaner) from a homebrew or draught system supply store ( Sierra Madre Brewing Co.).
2.) Run very hot tap water through your chiller, drain it and then immediately fill it with the BLC solution. Follow the mfg. directions for mixing up 1 quart of the solution.
3.) Let the chiller sit with the BLC in it for 10 minutes then drain it and rinse it out with hot water.
4.) Repeat steps 2 and 3 a second time.
5.) Fill your chiller with a sanitizing solution like 5-star's Starsans. Drain and give it a quick rinse with hot or cold water.
6.) After you are done chilling your beer run cold tap water through it for 15 to 20 minutes...use water coming from the exit hose to rinse other pots, pans, etc. during your clean up.
7.) Leave the chiller where it can drain and dry completely. I have done this routine for 3 years now and I have never had an infection from bacteria growing in the chiller. I have had to replace hoses at times. My chiller has never clogged up on me. good luck BrewDude

Q: Is there any beer/ale that does not need yeast in the ingredients. I have an intolerance to yeast! Thanks
A: The main beers that I know of using bacteria to ferment them instead of yeast are Belgian. Try a Lambic or a sour Flanders Red ale. Rodenbach makes a sour red ale that is available in the U.S. and there are many brands of lambics available in the U.S. Brewdude

Q: Dear Beer Dude, Ever since my husband introduced me to a homebrewed English Bitter, I find it difficult to drink any beer that is not highly flavored with hops. I am forever searching for the Indian Pale Ales and other hoppy beers. My question: Has my insatiable taste for hops ruined my enjoyment for any. Sincerely, Pee, HopHead from Melrose, Florida (where they don't have decent beer and you have to make your own!)
A: Your quest for hoppy beers may not ruin your taste buds but it will effect the way you perceive flavors of all foods and drinks for the rest of that day/evening. I am not a hop head myself but I do enjoy a good English bitter which is not a very hoppy beer at all. Try comparing Fullers' IPA to any American IPA and you will see how over hopped American versions of British beers really are. If you have any lingering hop flavor that worries you try brushing your tongue with toothpaste until all the hop flavor is gone. I always brush my tongue before homebrew contest judging. good luck BrewDude

Q: Help! I'm a first time home brewer and just bottled my beer this week. First question; how the heck do you use a hydrometer? There's several columns to read from and I don't know what any of them mean. Second question; I let my beer sit for 2 weeks prior to bottling, airtight container with airlock attached. Is this okay or was it too long? Oops sorry, one more question; what's an easier way to sterilize other than boiling your bottles? What a pain that was. Thanks for any help you can offer and here's to happy brewing, Lisa
A: When reading a hydrometer you have a couple of options.
1.)Using the alcohol content scale - Measure your beers alcohol potential by cooling some unfermented beer, called wort, to 60 or 68 degrees(whichever your hydrometer was calibrated at) and then take a reading. When the beer is done fermenting take another reading. Subtract the second reading's figure from the firsts and you will know about how much alcohol is in your beer.
2.)Using the Specific gravity scale...all of the numbers above 10 along the scale should be read with 1.0 in front of them until you exceed 100. For example a reading of 50 is really 1.050 and a reading of 9 is really 1.009, NOT 1.090. You use the specific gravity scale to calculate the quantity of sugar in the beer at any given time. This is a real help to all grain brewers who constantly are checking the efficiency of their brewing system. Being a finer scale than the alcohol content scale it will help you get a more accurate idea of small changes in the amount of sugar into alcohol as a beer finishes fermenting. Always sanitize the thing you use to take samples...read the hydrometer in a reading tube, not in the fermenter Don't return the beer to the fermenter after taking a reading - taste it instead so that you can get an empirical understanding of what the numbers mean. good luck BrewDude

Q: Hey Beer Dude recently at a brewfest, I discovered porter. I loved it, and have been trying different ones every chance I get. I have noticed that they are all SO different. Some are very strong, (my favorites), and some are very mild, almost weak. My favorite so far is River City brew porter. my least favorite is Black Butte beer. too watery. What makes a good porter, how is it different from other beers? Thanks for the site.
A: Porter is supposed to have started as a mixture of a couple of draught ales in England. It later boomed as a beer brewed to be like the combination concoction. The beer was served un-aged and aged for one year during which it developed a sour taste from bacteria in the aging casks. Porter was also brewed in the American colonies - George Washington was an avid porter fan. Both the American and British versions of porter all but died as a style about a hundred years ago and was then resurrected by the microbrew revival in the seventies. The style now has a loose definition with many interpretations. In England it is still a malty dark ale made with chocolate malt as the main flavor defining ingredient. In the U.S you will find it much more hopped and the use of chocolate and/or black malt. I recently tried making a historical version of the beer that used 1/2 2-row malt, 1/4 amber malt and 1/4 smoked malt plus a 1/4 lb of chocolate malt. It will need to age a while to bring the many flavors together. To me the main flavors that make porter different from stout are the generous use of crystal malts that add body and sweetness to the beer and the use of chocolate malt. Most stouts use roasted barley or black malt instead of chocolate malt for flavor and color. Try sitting down for a tasting of Fuller's London Porter and Sierra Nevada's Porter before formulating a homebrewed version so that you can see two excellent examples of Porter. One very English and the other Very American. good luck Brewdude

Q: With my 2-week old son crying, I totally forgot to add my finishing hops for the last few minutes of my boil. Is there any reasonably easy and sanitary way to add that hop bouquet and flavor after fermentation prior to bottling? Thanks, Jeff
A: You can always dry hop with some whole hops to add more hop aroma and some hop flavor too. Use about 1/4 to 1/2 oz. in 5 gallons for a light to medium hop aroma. Add a whole ounce if you really want to make a statement. I'd also recommend that you use a traditional aroma hop for this like East Kent Goldings, Cascade or Hallertauer. Add the hops after fermentation has all but stopped. Don't use pellets for dry hopping. You can make it easier for yourself if you sanitize a hop bag to hold the hops and to make their removal easier. I like to use hops plugs in my kegs without the bags and I have had very few problems with them clogging up the serving tube. Leave the hops in the beer for at least 2 weeks before racking the beer or removing the hops. Another option is making a hop tea by steeping 1/2 oz. to 1 oz. of whole leaf hops in water that is 170°F. Then add the water to your fermenter while still hot at the end of fermentation. The beer in either case should be too acidic for any bacteria on the hops to infect your beer. If you are worried about infection the best way to sanitize the hops is to steam them for 15 min. This will also improve the way the dry hopping tastes and smells. good luck Brewdude

Q: Hey brewdude! I have a 2 gallon keg setup for simple brewing. I have made five or six batches and I always get a cidery flavor that seems to go away when I age it. Is there a way to eliminate this flavor so my beer is drinkable sooner? Thanks
A: The cidery flavor is almost always from corn sugar. Don't use it in making the beer and don't use it to prime the beer when kegging or bottling. Use extra pale malt extract instead. Use about 1/3 more extract, measured by weight, than sugar. Most ales need 1/2 to 3/4 oz. of priming sugar per gallon to carbonate them right....use 3/4 to 1 oz per gallon of malt extract to prime it right. In a recipe use 25% more extract than you would use sugar. This extract has a better chance of being fully fermented so you don't have to compensate quite as much compared to the priming sugar/extract figures above. good luck! Brewdude

Q: Brewdude; I read how hop utilization is reduced by high wort S.G. So, I boil my hops about 1/2 hour in my partial mash before adding my malt extract. My local supply shop owner says noooo, that the hops needs the malt in order to react in the wort and provide its magic. My experience tells me my way works fine. What do you think.
A: If you are boiling your hops with the wort from your partial mash you are o.k. You will get better utilization of the hops doing it this way as you alluded to in your note to me. If you're looking to add only bitterness and not hop flavor you can try boiling for 1 hour. For good hop aroma and flavor try adding 1/3 of the hops to the mini-mash and then add the other 2/3 to the boil and boil for an hour. This is a really different way of hopping your beer but I think you will be really impressed with the results. Keep up the good work...I mean brewing. Brew dude

Q: Dear Beer Dude: My husband and I have made several batches of homebrew and they have turned out pretty well. On our last attempt, however, we did not get it bottled soon enough and it is flat. Is there any way to fix this, or do we just need to pour it out and chalk it up to experience????
A: I too have run into this problem once before. To cure it I used two packets of dry yeast. I mixed them in a pint of cooled pre boiled water(boil water 30 min. to remove oxygen - then cool in a sealed sanitized container). Use a sanitized baby medicine syringe available at most drug stores to dose each bottle with about 10 cc of the yeast slurry and then recap the bottles. Keep the yeast slurry container covered in between the times that you refill the syringe. Give the beer 3 to 4 weeks to condition at 65 to 75°F. Keep everything clean where you work on your beers and sanitize anything that touches the yeast slurry or the beer. Adding fresh yeast will carbonate the beer and it shouldn't alter the flavor at all...be sure to dispense the slurry from the syringe gently so that you keep splashing to an absolute minimum. Good luck! Brew dude

Q: What is the process in making beer? I am doing a report on Belgian beer for school. thank you. -student BURP!
A: The basic story of making beer is that grains(malted barley, wheat, corn, millet) is soaked in very warm water. The porridge is then drained through some sort of a filter so that the sweat sugars from the grain are separated from the fiber. This liquid called wort is boiled. The current European tradition calls for boiling with hops. In some beers, especially Belgian ales and in many parts of the world the wort is boiled with spices to balance the sweetness. The wort is cooled and yeast is added or in the Belgian tradition yeast floating in the air falls in the wort and fermentation begins. Sometimes bacteria is used to ferment beers with or without the help of yeast. Belgian Lambics are a prime example of this. When the fermentation is complete the beer is put in bottles or kegs. I have even heard of beers in Africa, the Yucatan and the South Pacific that are quickly fermented and then served as the fermentation is winding down. These beers are often served up by ladling the beer from a large container like a barrel or bucket into the drinker's glass. For tons more info on Belgian beers check out this web site.... http://beer.miningco.com/home/beer/msubbelg.htm Good luck on your report - My college term paper for my American Government class was on the Anheuser family and there legacy of using lobbying tactics to keep competitors out of the marketplace =)Brew Dude

Q: Beer dude: thanks in advance for answering this question. The question is: because I have a 2 year old I don't/can't usually brew during the day. So what I usually wind-up doing is mashing while he takes a nap usually about 2-3 pm and just letting the mash sit for 5-6 hours until after he goes to bed--then sparging. I have been doing this for my last 6-7 batches (before I was an extract brewer and could wait until her went to bed) and they seem to turn out really good. am I doing something wrong by letting the mash sit for so long? Thanks
A: You are not doing anything wrong at all!. I did my first all grain batch in the same way. I mashed in at 160 in a converted picnic beverage cooler then went to bed. The next morning I sparged and boiled. The mash only dropped to 145. The only theoretical problems come from Lactobacillus bacteria starting to ferment your mash. This should only happen in and environment devoid of oxygen. Unless you seal your mash with plastic wrap you shouldn't have a problem. By mashing for so long you have only two control problems, over-fermentablility due to temperature drop and possible over degradation of proteins if the mash drops into the low 130's or 120's. Keep your mash warm in a well insulated container or in a metal pot in the oven and you can avoid heat loss. keep up the good work! Brew Dude

Q: Mr. Brewdude, My brother and I recently completed our first batch of homemade ale beer. Im pleased to say it meets our satisfaction in every way but one. Looking at the beer through the bottle it appears clear with some sediment on the bottom; but it seems no matter how careful you pour the beer in a glass, it gets cloudy. What is the secret to a clear beer. I was also told Irish moss adds to clarity. Is there truth to this?
A: There are two secrets to cure your problem. 1.) Once you start pouring a bottle conditioned beer that has yeast sediment don't stop until most of the beer is out of the bottle and the yeast is heading for the neck of the bottle.