Brewcommune

I've never used coconut in a beer before but I think a safe way to go about it would be to add maybe a # or so to the end of primary (or secondary if you do one) and the sample every couple of days until the taste is where you like it. You may want to go lighter on the amount of coconut tho - perhap...

Welcome Clive!

ditto +1

Welcome!

Coming from someone who went the whole RO water + mineral additions route - I +1 Brad's response. I went back to carbon filtered tap water and 50/50 RO/tap when brewing light lagers. If you have a problem with the end product there's just too many variables in play trying to determine the cause. Onc...

Get as nit picky or relaxed about homebrewing as you want... there's room for every style of brewing. There's nothing wrong with either method. Some people love to try and nail a style to the best of their abilities (think competitions). Some like to just brew beer and drink it... screw styles! Some...

I'm sure it'd be tasty in a red ale. If it's similar to Whitelabs WLP013 it's best suited for british pales, bitters, and stouts. Fresh free yeast especially from a brewpub that brews good beer is a good thing!

How long do you boil the starter wort before canning/jarring? I can it for 15 minutes at 15 psi which is about 250*. The pressure prevents it from boiling and coming out of the jars. I'm a little confused. So you mash and collect wort and then jar and pressurize it immedieately? There is no boiling...

Canning starter wort does take time but it saves a lot more time in the end when it comes to brewing. I always hated breaking out that sticky bag of DME each time I wanted a starter - by canning, you only have to do it once or twice (depending on how many jars you wanted) and it should hold you over...

You could always crash your starter and pour out the spent wort before ptiching. I used the cold pitch method for quite a while with excellent results but you could always warm the yeast up to ferment temps first if you prefer. Since you're only concerned with growing yeast with starters, I don't th...

Palmer says "several months". I've gone about 5 months in primary without off flavors and I've heard of people going over a year on other boards. In fact, I've never heard of anyone who has had their homebrew ruined by autolysis, but I'm sure it can happen. Palmer does have an interesting...

Oh and in case you aren't using one yet - I highly recommend a blow off tube instead of a bubbler. You don't want to be cleaning your ceilings!

The page looks great to me Derrin. Nice!

I'd use at least a # to be safe. Like Brad said - better safe than sorry. A stuck mash SUCKS!

So I understand the basic concept of a yeast starter, but maybe someone could explain it in a bit more detail? In fact I was thinking it might be helpful if we stickied some articles on the basics so new visitors to the hobby (like me) can easily find information and don't need to bother all of you...