Blatzman

I just moved my batch to the fridge for a cold crash before bottling. As usual, I tried a little taste and....WOW! I made the Northern Brewer Dry Irish Stout recipe. It calls for steeping dark roasted (English) barley for 20 min. The taste difference is in-frickin-credible. I am amazed. If this is any indication, I see steeping grains in the future of all my brews. :stout:

Timely question, as just popped one of my Rye beers after only 7 days carbing (The suspense was killing me). It was f-l-a-t. Serves me right. I'm going to give it another 10 days at room temp. You'd think I would have learned by now after 20+ brews, but I was too impatient. I'm an A** :dry: Edit: my wife told me to wait..now she is giving me the "you never listen to me" routine. :pinch:

Update: I bottled this last night and it tasted great right out of the LBK. Cold crashing was key, as I went commando. Stay tuned for first pour in 3 weeks

Yup, that the Northern Brewer store...it's fermenting now. I'll post an update next week.

Way to go!

Good to know for next time. Just checked it and the yeast is churnin'

Wish I would have bought that one....

@mashani, Yes I did boil all of the malt for the whole time. This was my very first non-Mr B. extract brew, so I didn't quite know all of the tricks. Up to this point, I've just used the Deluxe refills. Do you think it will still turn out OK?

I have no idea how this will turn out..I was basically flying by the seat of my pants. 3 lbs Northern Brewer Rye Malt Extract 1 gal H2O 1 oz US Golding - 60 min boil 0.5 oz US Fuggle - last 15 min Half a packet of Safale US-05 Dry Ale Yeast Ice bathed it down to 96F, added it to 4Q cold H2O in the LBK and topped it off to 8.5Q, pitched yeast, crossed fingers. Thoughts?

Thanks. I didn't buy any yet, but we have a Northern Brewer store in my area (Milwaukee) and I've been looking at some of their kits. So far the kits I have seen require a hop boil and steeping grains. Not sure if they sell kits w/HME? I'm just looking to try something different and save some shipping $ at the same time.

So I plan to use two LBK's, but do I fill to the 4 qt mark with cold water and then pour the wort to the 8.5-ish mark? Or do I have to chill the wort (ice bath) before pouring in the LBK's? If not, will it be cool enough to pitch the yeast, as I am not adding additional cold water? Not quite sure of the steps here. I've only made Mr.B kits so far and I'm trying to relate those steps to this and I'm a bit confused. Sorry and thanks for the advice.

So I've been to the LHBS and seen several extract kits (w/steeping grains) that look interesting. I do not have a 5 gal carboy, nor am I interested in getting a "traditional" home brew set-up. My questions: 1)Can these 5 gal extract kits be used w/ the Mr.B keg, fermenting/bottling process? 2)Would I have to make the entire kit and ferment it in 2 Mr.B kegs (and dump the remainder) or could I measure out the correct amount of ingredients to use w/one Mr.B 2 gal set-up? Thanks!

I had a whispering wheat that was about a year old and it was fine. I have also had several recipes that were about 8 months old and they were as good as the 3-4 month beers which are better than 2-2-2 or 2-2-4 beers. I think that 3-6 months in the fridge is optimum.

Hey guys, I just tried a porter at my local brewpub that the description said had a hint of raisins in the finish. It was pretty good and I could taste a slight raisin finish. Anyone have experience with throwing raisins onto the fermenter?

Using this method, you would be making an all malt brew with 2 HME's and no booster. Does a 2 HME only brew turn out OK?