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creeps... beer has all the nutrient your body ever will need.they even named a vitamin after it.. vitamin B for Beer. no need to clutter it up with fruit. ive been drinking beer for ages and i'm in the best shape i've ever been in... round.

Im gonna brew a saison, shocking I know. but Im gonna ferment in primary with saison yeast and lacto and then secondary with some brett. Its gonna be a long process but itll be worth it. Challenge is to get plenty of dextrins in there for the brett to chew on. No matter what, @Big Sarge is sure to receive a bottle or 6. Also I gotta get some amber lager figured out for September when I go visit the badlands and @Bonsai & Brew. Might sound crazy, but Im gonna also possibly pick up some oak spirals from Austin Homebrew Supply for the sasion / lacto / breet beer. Id like to get some oak tannins in there as well for added body. Might ship those to my inlaws in TX while im down there visiting them and @Jdub. Maybe bring back some Jester King beer and propagate some yeast for that beer. who knows. anythings possible.

Lol, man, let me tell you. Fruited beers are tough. A kettle soured fruited beer is great, but trying to balance the phenols of a saison with the phenols and tannins of some berries is my newest challenge. I guess theres a reason classic lambic brewers age their beers on fruit for months. Trying to rush a fruit beer is proving to be difficult but Im having a lot of fun along the way, Plus since I don't eat much fruit, I figure Im getting some sort of health benefits for drinking my fruits.

maybe make some cookies and have a bake sale? LOL

yeast rafts take on many forms. when i use us04 i get floaty tan/orange colored clumps of yeast at multiple levels within the wort. some topside. some below. it's normal. yeast sometimes link hands and sing kumbaya for reasons only yeast know. sour producing infections look like shrike's pics. when those snotty white clumps join up they form a 'pellicle'. it's like a semi-hard protective fingernail like scale to seal off the wort below and allow the bacteria to eat all your lovely alcohol. i had a lacto bacillus infection in a pumpkin weis that looked like pic 2. big snotty white/grey bubbles. there is a difference between 'sour' and 'tart' that many people get confused on. fermenting too hot produces a cidery green apple tartness that some perceive as 'sour'. true sour is more like eating unflavored, unsweetened yogurt. sour. puckering mouth, pinchy face sour. atomic warhead candy sour. sucking on lemons sour. tart like you get in wheat beers, is more like semi ripe cherry sharpness of flavor. or perhaps real cranberry in nature. acetobacter infections produce vinegar flavors. the more alcohol the bug converts to acetic acid, the more intense the off taste until it gets so strong you can actually damage your mouth. brett-c infections produce the sour similar to a lacto infection. people intentionally brew with brett c to make various sour beers that i am not a fan of myself. infections arent that common if you exercise even the slightest good hygiene when brewing. there's an ancient thread here somewhere about Mashani's cat butt ale. lol... it's a classic.

Not here. Search is still not working properly, nor does trying to find some products through the menus. I went 20th Century-style today and phoned my order in.

If you are new to brewing and have the 2 gallon MRB fermenter with the Kollar, I would use it. It is there and as a new brewer it just makes sense to use it. It will not hurt anything and will definately make sure your Krausen doesn't overflow.

Stretch, They keep the instructions simple because they want newbies to brew year around. There are few if any places in the majority of households with a dark place that has ambient temperatures around 60-f in the middle of July. That is why you need some way of keeping your brew cold and if that were in the instructions, the majority of newbies would say it is too expensive to deal with brewing this kit. Thus either never brewing or returning it to where it was purchased. In either case, MRB would not receive any future sales from that customer. Remember that most MRB kits are given as gifts and the so the actual brewer is not actually out any money if he never brews it or fails at brewing it. The fallout rate of new brewers is high already and further complicating the instructions would raise the rate even more (wow, I sound like @RickBeer) There is only a small percentage of people who brew these kits that ever join the forum and work to improve their first bad brew. Congratulations to you for doing this, you will in time become a better brewer because you are here and asking the tough questions.

Brown sugar contains molasses, which is not good in beer, it does tend to leave a licorice type of taste. Regular white sugar will dry the beer and not leave those flavors behind. You could use 3/4 cup of honey but the flavor of honey goes away and sugar has the same effect without the cost. Corn sugar could be substituted but may leave a little sweetness behind because it is not 100% fermentable.

i would second @Shrike's comments. i brewed that recipe and did not like it. If I were to brew it again, I would skip the brown sugar and find another adjunct, like corn sugar, or honey to sub for it. I have a can of BAA and will give it another shot at some point.

I did not care for the final result when I made it. Brown sugar can add a flavor that some people taste as licorice. If I were to brew it again I'd follow the instructions but only use 1/2 cup of light brown sugar.

I was getting errors with trying to order on Monday. Used the online form to ask for help and got no response. As MRB customer service is usually on the ball I figured something was up.

Well, I just checked OG before pitching the yeast. 1.022 Oh well, maybe it'll be near beer. To say I'm disappointed would be misrepresenting my true feelings. I know I did everything per instructions, from sanitizing, to boiling to hopping, to cooling... The only thing that occurs to me now is that, after I added my 70-F water to the wort to reach the one-gallon mark, I did not stir or shake it up. I just relied on the turbulence I observed on pouring the water in to think that it was mixed enough. After pitching the yeast, I did shake and stir well, but by then it was too late for the hydrometer, and even if not, it is now. Anyway, my first all-grain batch is in the cooler. But again, on The Lighter Side©, as I was cleaning up my wife comes home and says there's a box on the porch for me. A new LBK, That Voodoo...., and Oktoberfest is inside. A happy ending.

yes. yes. yes and no. old or unwanted yeast can be boiled to kill it. i start timing when it reaches a low boil and then let it cook for about 5 minutes or so. then i flame out, cover and cool. alternatively you can add it to your boil and cook like that. you want the old yeast killed especially if you are brewing using a yeast with a desired flavor profile. you dont want any of the crud yeast surviving and potentially out-eating the good yeast. wort has tons of nutrients all on its own. if the yeast are relatively fresh (and you pitch enough) and not subjected to stress like heat/cold/or very high gravity they will do just fine. adding nutrient in the form of dead cells is like serving dessert at the start of a meal. the yeast will love you for it.. but will tuck into the dead cells or other nutrient first before tucking into the wort. any time i add nutrient be it yeast , raisins, sugar, etc... i get a little lag time added then the yeast go nuts. so absolutely not necessary in most cases. when i use tired old yeast out of necessity, or i am making something with a very high o.g. i add nutrient. i will also add a little more toward the midpoint of a high grav fermentation. example: making a belgian dubbel or trippel. these typically call for beet sugar additions. i do step feedings to keep the yeast from pigging out on junk food before they start working on the wort. the staged feedings keep them active and happy, and relatively stress free.

Well, I decided yesterday I'm not going to drink the rest of this batch... this American Lager. Whatever happened, it's not sitting well on my palate, and it's getting worse if it's getting anything at all. And.... I'll soon need the bottles for the upcoming batch. A shame. So I'll have to wait until my MRB 1776 Ale finishes (still one week to go in the fermenter) and until my all-grain English Pale Ale is done. I bought a Sam Adams variety pack last week or early this one - Boston Lager, Bavarian Wheat, Cold Snap, and my newfound favorite... '76 Lager/Ale. Tonight I went out looking for a single Sierra Nevada "Torpedo" IPA (https://sierranevada.com/beer/year-round/torpedo-extra-ipa) based on a Youtube brewers review and unending praise. I couldn't get a single and, at 7.2% ABV, I wasn't going to get a six pack and run the risk of not liking it. So I picked up a six of Coors Banquet and found........???..... a nice little 4-pack of Grolsch! It's been so many years and I thought they were long gone, so I snatched it up for old times sake. Ok. No homebrew talk in this post, but it is about beer. Maybe I can get away with it.

I have used ones like this at work, but $11.99? That is a REAL bargain. Maybe I will get one 😄 No wait - $10.99 and FREE ship[ping!

You say it like that's a bad thing? 😀

I made this beer back in December (27th) and instead of the brown sugar I subbed one cup of agave nectar. I don't know how to tell you how it was different from the recipe because I have only made this one batch - but it was good. lol That's about the limit of my descriptions...good/bad...dark/light...sweet/bitter....hoppy/not... but I think the agave was a better choice than what the brown sugar might have been. Low abv, tho. Just under 6.0%. Drinking the last of it (except for my 3 archived bottles) now.

@Shrike Ok, looking into it.

I agree with the posters above, I did not like it and if I brewed it again would brew with cane sugar instead of brown sugar. Cane sugar would be a 1 : 1 substitute.

Seconded. And if nothing else you'll have a good liquid in which to boil bratwurst.

This hobby/obcession has a high turn over rate. Patience, temperature control and patience are key points which can not be over emphasized. Can you make beer sooner? Yes. Will you enjoy drinking that faster beer? Probably not. If you can wait, the yeast will finish doing what they do.

Starting judging at a local comp.

You're welcome. Did you notice how I let the other guys do all the heavy lifting before I swooped in with the easy part? Anyway, you've got a lot of us emotionally invested in this brew so good luck!🍻

Experimented with labeling last night. Milk and corn starch is the way to go! dried over night, not going anywhere!