Topic: Mr Wizard
How long to secondary ferment
Many beers, especially big beers such as imperial stouts, mellow with extended aging in the secondary fermenter. It is usually best to place the secondary in a cool place for extended
Bottling Temperature
If this beer was properly fermented, it should have been completely fermented before you chilled it. The most reliable method to know whether a fermentation is done is to compare the specific
Brewing Pale Ales
Unfortunately I don’t have much information to digest from your question. All I know is that you have no luck brewing pale ales and I seem to be your last resort.
Higher Alcohols
Before you dump your mead down the drain, please read my answer! The aroma you describe is the distinctive scent of ethyl acetate. This nail-polish smelling compound is the most common acetate
Bottle Bombs
This question has a rather short, but important answer. Most breweries in the United States use “one-way” glass bottles for packaging. These bottles are lighter in weight compared to returnable bottles and are not intended
Bottle Conditioning Lagers
Since you are new to brewing lagers, I would focus 100% of my attention to primary fermentation and how the yeast behaves when fermented at cooler temperatures. Ale brewers are accustomed to
Outdoor refrigeration
The refrigeration cycle is pretty nifty and its development began in the late 1700s. The earliest use of commercial refrigeration occurred sometime in the mid 1800s by, you guessed it, breweries. The
Ramping Up to a Boil
n a very general sense the time required to bring wort to a boil can cause problems when the time is too long. Holding hot wort for extended time periods leads to
Adding Extract to Make Big Beers
I love this idea for a number of reasons. The first reason is that many malt extracts seem to be less fermentable than the preference of my palate. If you open a
Mash pH Importance
Mash pH is extremely important. Enzyme activity is a function of pH and all enzymes are only active in a relatively narrow range around their optimum pH. In the case of mashing,
Over-Oxygenation of Wort
I have been writing this column for nearly 18 years and I think I have been writing about the importance of wort aeration for nearly the same time period. While oxygen is
Batch Sparging Temperatures
This question is a bit more about semantics than any real issues with sparge temperature, in my view of things. Bear with me while I explain how commercial brewers normally mash out
