Mr. Wizard
Extract Addition times
This question really shows me how homebrewers have changed since the early days of the legal homebrewing movement in the United States. The early pioneer homebrewers in the mid to late 70s
Minimizing diacetyl in lagers
The first thing that comes to mind when contemplating diacetyl problems is yeast strain. I have not personally used Wyeast 2007 Pilsen Lager Yeast, but after reading its description and learning that
RIMS systems
I must confess that I am one of those particular brewers who likes nailing my target temperature and appreciate the gadgets of modern brewing. I have a mash mixer where I work
Irish Red Ales vs Oktoberfest
I wish I could travel to a different place in time when beer styles were truly tied to geographical regions, a time before globalization of brewing techniques and brewing ingredients. Based on
Corking Belgian-style homebrews
Your attempt to recreate the entire package at home is admirable and more challenging than using crown caps on normal beer bottles. For-tunately, the challenge has more to do with finding the
When you want to double the batch size of a recipe, do you just double all the ingredients also?
Dear Mr. Wizard, I’m a partial mash brewer and formerly brewed single, 5-gallon (19-L) batches using 2.5 gallons (9.5 L) of water in the brew pot. After the boil was complete, we
What is the proper way to force carbonate a keg of homebrew?
Dear Mr. Wizard, I used my keg system for the first time recently and force carbonated my brew by chilling the beer, applying approximately 30 pounds of carbon dioxide pressure and shaking
Gelatin fining naturally conditioned beer
Fining is one of those brewing practices that takes some “touch and feel” to perfect. Not all beers respond equally to finings, regardless of the type. That’s because the components in the
Delayed Yeast Pitching
This is a question deserving a brief answer! I think you are on the right track wanting to have your lager fermentations timed where you can use the same lagering schedule. I
Infusion vs. Step Mashing
Infusion mashing is a traditional method using an unheated mash tun, resulting in a single temperature mash. In reality, the temperature drops slightly over the mash rest and increases during sparging. Step
ID’ing wild hops
Hop variety identification can be done the old-fashioned way of comparing pictures of hop cones of known varieties to the unknown. Although this method is not perfect, it is widely used as
