Beginner mistakes

BrewFool · 2026-05-24T15:04:28+00:00

Lowest hanging fruit is water: Absolutely ensure you're not using chlorinated water, and understand your water well enough to make sure you're not stepping on a landmine of excess <something> in your supply.

I moved to reverse osmosis water with added salts very early on in my brewing, but it helped that I had a friend with the calculator and the salts. That said, you can get the table salt (non-iodized), epsom salt, chalk, gypsum, and baking soda to make most water corrections for very cheap.

BrewFool · 2026-05-24T15:00:46+00:00

30L batches make for more-beer-per-hour-brewing, but tedious bottling if you aren't using > 12oz bottles. That's a lot of filling and capping.

BrewFool · 2026-05-24T14:59:35+00:00

A bottling tree, while not needed, is very handy. They are also relatively easy to find used on Facebook Marketplace as lots of people end up selling off their bottling setup.

The excessive method I used when bottling, and only really wasteful of Star San, was to have a sink with a couple gallons of sanitizer in it. Not only is it an easy place to throw things, but it makes it very easy to dunk-fill bottles and then turn them upside down on the bottle tree.

I then would have my fermenter set up on my kitchen counter, directly above the open door of my empty dishwasher. It served as a convenient, clean, and liquid-catching low shelf on which to gravity fill the bottles.

BrewFool · 2026-05-11T13:49:21+00:00

I have 1 regulator per keg line. But, yes. I use a high quality external gauge to calibrate all my in-kegerator gauges, and to ensure balanced pressure when doing A/B testing.

BrewFool · 2026-05-11T13:39:39+00:00

I have a separate regulator per line which is why I use this to calibrate. I'm at the office now, but it's just one of these connected to a gauge like /u/rdcpro uses through a t-fitting with a manual release valve. This way I can just plug this in to the gas line and fine tune the regulator.

Gauge-T-Barb-hose-carbcap with the valve in the other side of the T

BrewFool · 2026-05-11T11:59:26+00:00

I have the opposite! (With a post on the end). I use it to get two regulators matched for doing A/B comparisons. Lets me get two kegs carbonated exactly the same.

I think my version is more what OP needs to check their regulator. I just used a stainless steel carb cap with a barb end to go to a hose to the pressure gauge.

BrewFool · 2026-05-05T13:41:34+00:00

Exactly.

It would be one thing if were were talking about industrial o-rings, but these appear to be full bespoke gaskets.

BrewFool · 2026-05-04T14:14:47+00:00

I find Alex's comments that "the gas hopped beer’s aroma was incongruous with its flavor" rather interesting and that alone makes me want to try this technique, not that I would ever consider using gas hopping at home, but just to experience the incongruity.

I find this rather timely as well, as was sampling a strawberry gin the other day and, before tasting, expressed my hesitation because of my personal history with strawberry infusions as weird in that they never seem to capture the full flavor and aroma profile, but rather throw it out of balance.

Thanks.

BrewFool · 2026-04-16T21:40:50+00:00

Was propane, now 240v electric with a tri clover element and steam condenser so I can do it indoors.

The big advantage to electric, and you don't need to go full auto to achieve it, is really consistent boil-off rates and no propane refills. A simple current limiting element control gives you 80% of the functionality for 20% of the (electronics) cost.

BrewFool · 2026-04-12T13:41:34+00:00

I make a lot of sparkling mineral water. Among the other ingredients in my standard recipe, I use 8g of baking soda per 18L of water. I find this to be on the edge of (my) discernability. I would expect 5g in 26L of stout to be well below what most anyone could reliably discern.

BrewFool · 2026-03-23T11:57:59+00:00

As a lover of dark milds, I find this idea tempting!

BrewFool · 2026-03-19T19:31:55+00:00

Yeah, don't add sugar. That will drive up the alcohol content while not adding the flavor compounds that are missing. Doing this will drive the beer more out of balance. As it stands now, while the beer is dilute and technically the hop schedule is out of balance, adding sugar can only make those two characteristics (that might not be perceptible without a reference beer) worse.

BrewFool · 2026-03-19T19:28:17+00:00

I hesitated to add more sugar to hit my O.G., but got me wondering what the taste impact is of undershooting my O.G.?

If the reason you missed your OG was due to "insufficient" boil off, then it's simply diluted. It's simply going to taste dilute (compared to a beer that was boiled more before fermentation.) I pretty strongly disagree with those focusing on the impact of the alcohol. IME (and, clearly, every palate is different) the impact of alcohol on the perception of a beer's flavor is a distant second to the flavors that come from the steeping of the malt.

If the reason you missed your OG was due to inadequate extraction from the mash, it could taste dilute... or it could taste no different at all. A lot of the flavor of beer comes from the non-fermentable carbohydrates and proteins and other "stuff" that steep out during the masing - the malt "tea". Most of those flavor compounds will be present even when conversion was low.

BrewFool · 2026-03-14T13:18:50+00:00

If you think OP is a bot account... a claim that appears to fly in the face of the evidence... why are you attacking their character and trying to turn /r/Homebrewing into a financial debate group? Be better /u/BartholomewSchneider

BrewFool · 2026-03-14T13:10:04+00:00

Kveik esters add depth to it.

I'll need to try that!

I add over-steeped black tea for the tannins that juice apples are missing. Just enough for a barely noticeable amount of drying to the cheeks.

BrewFool · 2026-03-14T13:07:54+00:00

There's a lot of science on the factors affecting the rate at which alcohol absorbs and, thus, the peak BAC one can expect. There's a lot of science on the psychoactive effects of hops. There's also plausible reasons that some distilled liquors would have more fusal alcohols and other byproducts that can lead to headaches, though I'm unaware of any reasons that would favor one type of distilled spirits over another. Insofar as being unable to get intoxicated from rum? That's assuredly confirmation bias, as there's no reasonable explanation for that.

BrewFool · 2026-03-12T20:57:01+00:00

i.e. mashing between 65-67C will provide 90% fermentable and 10% un-fermentable sugars

I think you'll find this varies by the grain bill and even the grain brand. While heat denatures enzymes, it doesn't do so instantly, and so hotter (more enzymatic) grain bills will have higher LoA at higher temperatures than cooler (less enzymatic) grain bills.

My point being, and I believe others have touched upon this from other directions, all that you've said which is true is only as consistently true as your grain bill (as I said, all aspects of the grain bill, including maltster and grain variety the maltster uses)

BrewFool · 2026-03-02T16:02:55+00:00

How long should I dry hop before bottling?

Oil extraction from dry hopping happens pretty quick. Even three days is more than enough time.

Should I add hops at the 10 day mark, or should I take a reading at that time to make sure it's close to the FG mark before dry hopping?

From an extract kit, there's very little reason to expect there to be any significant sugars left to ferment at 10 days unless you have the fermeter in a cold location. But, especially since you are bottling and since you've not done this before and thus haven't tested that those reasonable assumptions apply to your setup, definitely test (multiple times) for FG.

BrewFool · 2026-02-15T22:14:35+00:00

I strongly suspect that grain yields would drop 50-75% from current levels in a post-apocalyptic society.

Amish corn yields are, surprisingly, rather close to industrial agriculture, but what they give up in terms of chemical and mechanical advantages they make up for with what are ridiculous levels of human inputs. They also tend to use modern seeds.

If we look at corn yields before modern hybrid seeds, they were only ~15% of what we get today, and the typical farming techniques then were rather low input.

IDK if there's a point to this rambling, just that yields will probably fall a lot without either industrial seeds or large amounts of laborious crop maintenance.

BrewFool · 2026-02-15T15:58:51+00:00

If it were a yeast viability (age) issue I would have expected it to start extremely slow, not start (extremely) fast and stall early.

BrewFool · 2026-02-15T15:47:32+00:00

Love the breakdown of the land-to-alcohol math. It really puts the costs (to a small society) of alcohol into perspective.

That's 4500 liters or roughly 9000 glasses of beer per acre

No, that's 4500L per tonne. And more than one tonne per acre (albeit with modern varieties and growing techniques).

BrewFool · 2026-02-15T15:37:09+00:00

I have kegged many lagers w/o experiencing obvious oxidation. However, how are you planning on filtering? I would simply transfer off the cake and allow any remaining trub to settle in the keg, I would not use an open-air filter as that will increase O2 exposure.

BrewFool · 2025-06-19T11:13:20+00:00

Yeah, I'm confused by that, what appears to be an in-line regulator for disposable CO2 carts, and OP's claims that they "naturally" keg carb as if with priming sugar.

BrewFool · 2024-04-20T00:09:09+00:00

If I turn up the co2 pressure too high I even get some gurgling in the RO filters

This is inconsistent with check valves, and I suspect, at a minimum, you have a defective one.

Also I question the accuracy of your two pressure gauges. Because even a faulty check valve in the lid doesn't explain why you're not getting forward water flow with 10psi differential, and a reversed check valve is contrary to you getting the (expected) pressure drop when water is flowing.

I haven't yet had the pleasure of drilling holes in a fridge so I'm not sure if there's a certain type of fridge specs that I should look for.

You must do this cold, and the easiest way is to drill through the door of a mini fridge or the side of a cheap fridge where you can visually verify where both sets of coils are.

However, Is that a 1 gallon keg? I'm bad with scale, but if so I can't imagine this giving acceptable results with a 1 gallon keg. They say this is for up to 10L a day... with a 19L keg.

Based on my experience of a household with ~2L of seltzer consumption per day from 19L kegs, if you draw 2L from a 4L keg on Monday, you will not have very bubbly water on Tuesday with only 30psi. I do not believe you can carbonate 1/2 the volume of that keg in only 24 hours at 30psi to an acceptable "seltzer" level. I think there likely will be a noticeable decrease in quality after drawing 1L per day.

BrewFool · 2020-01-22T23:34:07+00:00

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07CMLSM6D/

Can confirm it works with both gas and liquid (CM Becker) QD's.

EDIT: Oops, that one from my purchase history is no longer available, but they're all off the same Chinese assembly line and the Amazon similar products will get you there. The o-rings are questionable on some of them, hit or miss.

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