Home Brewing Knowledge Base

Home Brewing Articles

General Brewing

  • Homebrewing
    Discuss your brewing techniques, brewing styles, and any tips you might have. Use our community to ask about these things as well.
  • Bottling
    Tips and tricks to finding a home for your beer.
  • Equipment
    Show off your equipment, share tips on maintaining and sanitizing.
  • Terms
    Common home brewing terms and jargon for the new home brewer.

Recipes

  • Homebrew Recipes
    Share your recipes and comment on other's recipes that you try.
  • Beer Related Recipes
    Do you have a good recipe that uses beer (or wine)? Know of any good marinade's? Let us know about them here.

Alternative Brewing

  • Brewing Cider
    Techniques for brewing cider. Tips, tricks, questions, they all go here.
  • Wine
    The art of distilling wine. Discuss tricks to the trade, your successes (or failures), and the joy of distilling wine.
  • Mead
    A wine made from fermented honey and water. Discuss brewing this favorite of the Romans and Greeks.

Home Brewing Community

  • The Pub
    A place to discuss things not about brewing, beer, wine, etc. This is a place to get to know our other members outside of our shared enjoyment of home brewing.
  • Beer / Wine Talk
    Talk about your favorite beers and wines (and meads and ciders, etc) with other beer and wine lovers.

Brew Market

  • Selling Brewing Stuff
    Whether its equipment or ingredients, if you need to get rid of some of your brewing stuff, do it here.
  • Buying Brewing Stuff
    Why pay regular price when you can request what you need from our brewing community?
Home Brewing at Brewing KB

BKB Home Brewing Blog Posts

An Interview with Baxter Brewing Company

Luke Livingston is opening a new brewery in Lewiston, Maine, Baxter Brewing Company, which expects to ship its first cases of beer in September of this year. However, Baxter is not just another craft brewery. In fact, it will be the first craft brewery north of Connecticut to can its entire line of beer. What [...]

Brewing With Chocolate

There are few things in this world as ancient, as revered, as cherished and as highly consumed as beer. One of those things, however, is chocolate. Its history, health benefits, allure and powers as an aphrodisiac are all well documented. Thus it only makes sense that the flavors of the two (beer & chocolate that [...]

Beyond Beer: Brewing Cider, Mead, Wine & Sake

Experimentation is the name of the game for homebrewers – it’s why many brewers continue to develop their hobby and why they choose to brew the beer they drink, rather than (or in addition to) buying it commercially. Homebrewers experiment with different styles, different techniques and different flavors. They go from extract brewing, to the [...]

The Canned Craft Beer Renaissance

There is little doubt that cans are fast becoming a mainstay on the American craft beer landscape. Cans began to appear in the craft market in 2002, when Oskar Blues Brewing Co. (now the 44th largest craft brewery in the country) of Lyons, Colorado purchased a manual, two-headed canning system from Cask Brewing Systems of [...]

Brewing With Fruit

Brewing beers with fruit additions is both fun and delicious, especially as the weather warms and we drag on into summer. But like with any brewing additive, there are many variations and schools of thought on the easiest and best ways to flavor a fruit beer. Once you’ve chosen a fruit flavor to impart in [...]

Beer Wars: The Movie

Simply put, Beer Wars the movie (2009) is one every fan of beer needs to see. The film, which can be downloaded directly from BeerWarsMovie.com, or streamed live (or rented) from NetFlix, was written and narrated by industry insider Anat Baron. In Beer Wars, Baron tells the story of craft brewing hero Sam Calagione, the [...]

Forced Fermentation Test, for accurate attenuation

I have noticed that one of the most frequently asked questions by new and old brewers is, is my beer done fermenting? Well, there are a few ways to answer that; varying from pitching more yeast to be sure, comparing the expected attenuation from the yeast manufacturer with the actual attenuation, or moving the beer [...]

Cleaning out those keg lines the easy way

Most of what you read or hear says to clean out your keg lines every 2 weeks. I know most restaurants are required to do this, (whether they do or not I can’t say), but that is the recommendation. Now I feel that at the homebrew / homebar level that is probably overkill, and a way [...]

Ulterior Motive Recipe

Ulterior Motive Brewing Beer and men go together.  This is an accepted, immutable fact which cannot be changed without dire threat to life in this universe as we know it.  Since the very balance of our existence hinges on this combination, then it stands to reason that most hobby brewers are men.  This isn’t to say [...]

Recipe Review – Clara Bell

Home Brewers Ultimate Recipe Book Clara Bell So, I was scrolling through my copy of the Home Brewers Ultimate Recipe Book (also known as the Best Cookbook Ever) looking for a nice refreshing summery beer when I came across the recipe for Clara Bell. I decided to make it mainly because I noticed [...]

Latest Home Brewing Discussions

questions about my mead

hello i'm new to homebrewing. i've made three batches of beer so far and i'm loving it. i've been reading and learning a ton ..

All Grain system question

I am thinking about building an all grain system and I had a question about the difference between HERMS and RIMS. Am I not und..

Making double starter?

I am planning on brewing a 10 gallon batch that requires two wyeast packs, with starters, but I forgot to get the second wyeast ..

Shaftesbury Cream Ale

So, it's been a busy couple weeks. I ended up resigning my job, and taking a new position. I am now a satellite office for a ..

BrewMate, Free Beer Recipe Designer!

Hey Guys, Just wanted to add a plug for some brewing software i've been working on: BrewMate, the free, light-weight and easy-..

Straining wort before fermenting

Read several ideas whether its best to strain the wort and get the solids out before fermenting. Several people had trouble with..

Imperial Stout Question

I brewed an Imperial stout last Thursday evening (7/15/10), and got it fermenting at 68-69 degrees in my basement (very stable t..

brewing for a wedding reception

I am going to be brewing for a friends wedding reception next January and I was wondering if anyone else has done any mass brewi..

Can a beer ferment to fast?

My favorite yeast is WLP005, this is a great English ale yeast, used for everything from my ESB's to the African Amber, it alway..

New to brewing, have a few questions.

Hello everyone, I am new to beer making, and have just started my first batch. I started out using a dutch lager brew house bee..

use by dates

I was just wondering, how long will a beer last after being bottled?..

Old True Brew Beer Kits...

I am just getting into brewing and saw an ad for a Brewers Best start-up kit. Never used kit with all the standard stuff (2 plas..

American Pale Ale

As I was boiling my wort, I noticed that I had an extra .5 oz of Cascade hops (not sure if they were dry or flavoring because ne..

60 gallon Turbid Mash Lambic brewday

As some of you may know, last year me and a few guys brewed up a [url=http://www.brewingkb.com/homebrewing/60-gallon-consecratio..

Low Original Gravity in Mac&Jack's Clone

I followed bruguru's M&J's clone for 5 gallons, the boil took 90 minutes, and at the end I didn't have much wort left. I start..

Double Body vs Single Body CO2 Regulator?

I am going to be using a 5lb CO2 cylinder, and wondered if there are any issues in using a double body regulator on this style i..

Experiment gone wrong?? Should I ditch it and try again or be patient?

I am just a begineer, and for my second batch of wine I tried to experiment. I mixed two 1 gallon recipes, Peach and Raspberry. ..

Real champagne corks

I am having trouble locating real champagne corks for my sparkling meads. I am not talking about the white plastic jobs you can..

hops for smaller boil

have hop amounts for 5 gallon boil, but max I can boil is 3 gallon, just use 20% more hop amount (saw that as a general rule of ..

Happy 4th. What you drinking?

We are having a big cookout tomorrow after the local parade goes by up the street. Usually a nice leisurely afternoon at my hous..

July the 3rd party

I have a party to go to today that I brewed 2 beers for. Thirsty brewchez ESB, and a Brooklyn summer ale clone. I know that th..

Bottle Gaskets

Sorry if this has been posted before, but I didn't have time to peruse all of the threads. Question: I just bought 60 resealab..

Faster way of getting rid of that sulfur smell?

So I've got an American wheat going that I just dry hopped yesterday. I used a Kolsch yeast that gives off a sulfur aroma/flavo..

Kegerator/Ferm Chamber - All in one?

I've looked all over the place to see if anyone's done this before, but haven't found anything. I'm wondering if i can take my ..

No more honey in 2035? (Colony Collapse Disorder)

Figured this info might interest the mead makers out there.....but it seems like it could be an issue for everyone! It's kind o..