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Earlier today read a very good article on secondary fermentation from Home Brew Supply.  It backed up what I've suspected and experienced.  I'll summarize here and share my experiences. What is Secondary Fermentation? Techincally, secondary fermentation is any period of additional fermentation or conditioning that takes place following the primary fermentation period.  Generally speaking, secondary fermentation involves transferring a beer out of its primary fermentation vessel into a second sanitized vessel. The point of secondary fermentation is to get the beer off the original cake of yeast and the sediments that have fallen to the bottom of the fermenter.  When yeast goes dormant at the end of fermentation and begins to die off, the yeast cells will disintegrate and give off chemicals that negatively impact the flavor of your finished beer. Is Secondary Fermentation Still a Valid Process? The secondary fermentation process came into existence in the ...

Back in January, I brewed my first Belgian Quadrupel.  It turned out so well that I have only 4-5 bottles of it left, and that's only because I've been jealously guarding them.  I decided to brew it again today, and also to change it up a little to see if I could improve on it. Ingredients 12 pounds of Belgian Pilsen malt 12 ounces of Caramunich I malt 8 ounces of Melanoidin malt 5 ounces of Special B malt 4 ounces of Aromatic malt 1 ounce of Chocolate malt 2 pounds of Iraqi Date Syrup 4 ounces of Turbinado Sugar 4 ounces of D-90 Candi Syrup 0.25 ounces of Indian Coriander seeds, crushed 5 grams of Grains of Paradise, crushed 0.85 ounces of Styrian Goldings hops pellets @ 6.2% AA 0.65 ounces of Northern Brewer hops pellets @ 10.1% AA 0.50 ounces of Czech Saaz hops pellets @ 3.4% AA 0.5 teaspoons of Wyeast Yeast Nutrient 1 Whirlfloc tablet 1 tablespoon of pH 5.2 Stabilizer 1 Wyeast 1214 Belgian Abbey yeast smack-pack Changes Since Version 1.0 of the Recip...

I've been on a quest to find what, for me, is a perfect Belgian Tripel recipe.  I'd like something that's a cross between Tripel Karmeliet and Unibroue's La Fin Du Monde.  It should be slightly sweet, not too bitter, have a nice head on it, and have the typical spicy/fruity notes that true Belgian Tripels are noted for.  I've brewed a few extract-based tripels that weren't bad but weren't close to what I wanted. I've also brewed two or three all-grain tripels.  One of those either soured a bit in the kettle due to a stuck mash or I added too much coriander to it - I don't know. The bottom line is that I'm still chasing that Holy Grail of a tripel recipe I love. The good folks at CandiSyrup.com post clone recipes of popular Belgian beers which of course use their products for the adjunct components.  They have a recipe online for a Tripel Karmeliet clone .  I had intended to brew their recipe as-is but couldn't source all the ingredients loc...

Cooler with ice water (left) and cooling jacket with fermenter inside (right).  Temperature controller and temperature monitors visible. As I suspect most home brewers do, I've constantly worked to improve my knowledge, equipment, and processes.  I've gone from extract to all-grain, from my kitchen stove to a dedicated RIMS system, from plastic bucket fermenters to stainless steel fermenters, from pre-crushed grain to freshly-crushed.  I've even made efforts to alter my water chemistry to better match the style I'm brewing.  I think my beer's gotten better as a result of all that. One aspect I've not controlled well so far is fermentation temperature.  In part, this has been because I didn't think I needed to.  I brew primarily Belgian beer styles, and most of the Belgian abbey brewers let the yeast ferment at whatever temperature it wants to.  They don't try to cool it, because they claim this can make the yeast stall out.  They don't heat ...

Like most craft beer fans, I've read for years about the amazing Westvleteren XII beer.  It's said to be one of the best beers in the world, and certainly one of the best of the Belgian monastery beers. Unfortunately, I've never seen a bottle of it for sale in Ohio.  Ordering it over the Internet would mean spending as much as $25 per bottle plus shipping, which seems a bit excessive.  What's a home brewer to do?  Brew his own, of course. A number of people have told me that the folks at the CandiSyrup.com site have done a great job figuring out how to clone and brew many of the world's best beers.  What follows here is their recipe for a Westvleteren XII clone beer, adjusted slightly because I discovered at the last minute I was missing one of the ingredients. The Recipe 10 pounds of Belgian Pilsen Malt 5.5 pounds of Belgian Pale Malt 2 pounds of D-180 Candi Syrup 10 ounces of D-90 Candi Syrup 0.8 ounces of Brewer's Gold hops pellets 10.5% AA 1 ounce...

InkBird Temperature Controller I Use If you've been home brewing for any length of time, you know the importance of maintaining an appropriate and consistent temperature during the fermentation of your beer.  The goal is to keep the beer within a temperature range that allows your yeast to work its magic without getting too hot (and thus generating off-flavors) or too cold (and going dormant before finishing the job). I do all of my fermentation in my basement, which maintains a year-round temperature in the low-to-mid 60's (note:  all temperatures referenced in the post are in Fahrenheit unless otherwise stated).  I also have switched to only stainless steel fermenters, which I personally prefer to glass or plastic. Fermwrap heater A few months ago, I acquired a fermwrap heater  ($23.99) and an Inkbird temperature controller  ($38.99 or less when on sale periodically).  I'd been using these to keep my fermentation temperatures from getting too ...

Like most home brewers, I've been gradually learning more and improving my skills over time.  One of the areas I've been trying to improve is temperature control during fermentation and bottle conditioning. I'd ordered an expensive controller online which looked like the ultimate gadget.  I found that its temperature probe was many degrees off and that it couldn't be calibrated to read accurately.  I abandoned that model. Then I found an inexpensive one on eBay.  That arrived from China.  Its temperature unit was Celsius, which required conversion to Fahrenheit when I used it.  That one seemed to be pretty accurate but wasn't so well-made.  I used it for a while until I saw this InkBird unit on sale. The InkBird ITC-308 has been a joy to use.  It's met several of my criteria for a fermentation temperature controller: It can use Fahrenheit for temperature display and setting It can be calibrated to read accurately against a known-accur...