Recent content by BeerAlchemist

I’m learning by trial and tribulation how to grow grapes and lost a few plants along the way. I have a couple of rows of Pinot noir 777 on 3309 root stock. I need to replace five and am struggling to find a source as I live in Washington which is very restrictive for shipping of grapes. I’ve...

You’re fine, the environment is hostile to anything that can harm you. You pretty much have to work at infecting beer with something and if you do, it is nothing harmful, just unpleasant tasting.

You working grapes that can’t ripen in our climate? I’m up in Arlington and wouldn’t touch those varieties, just grow PN and those only hit 20 brix this year, harvested a week before Halloween before the rains came.

Yup, hope to find some fellow folks from western Washington with some PN growing experience.

Generally brewers use spirit barrels for aging which are too harsh an environment for typical beer spoilage critters like bret, pedio, and lacto. So if the barrel was freshly emptied and handled properly it’s not much a worry. Wine barrels would be more typically used for sour beers where the...

I was last active on this forum a decade ago when I was dabbling in some wine kits and fruit wine so figured I should re-introduce myself. Now I live on some acreage and decided to plant some Pinot Noir clones to give me something difficult to do while my wife is working in her vegetable garden...

Wait a second, aren't the folks selling something the exact folks we shouldn't be trusting about the product :)

Holy crap, just re-read what I wrote...apparently getting distracted at work and not proof reading makes for some interesting typos. The greatest challange in homebrewing is being consistent IMO. To achieving this means keeping things, well, consistent, and LHBS's grain mills are used by...

I'm with Rocky and G8Keeper, a decade of brewing and still using the hydrometer that came with my first kit. Hopefully winemaking won't be the straw that breaks its back.

Fly, sounds like the harvest went well and you hit your numbers. How's fermentation going?

Getting the hop and protein sediment from the boil in the fermenter isn't ideal, but it won't ruin anything either so you probably had something else going on in your first attempt. Well, if you make whiskey, then you know how to mash so this shouldn't be too hard, its just more important to...

Did you get the gravity pushed down any more or just bottle at 1.022?

Yes please do like tingo and make sure they know you want to own it. Please don't get a keg and forfeit the deposit and think that as buying it, it is theft and really hurts the brewer, most of which are on razor thin profits and can't afford to lose kegs like that. If you get one for $30 expect...

I would avoid the ebay refractometer. Get one from a reputable dealer like morewine.

Or if it stalls out you can say the hell with it and through some brett into like us beer guys do :D