Maple Imperial Stout recipe, understanding pitching rates and more

Plus, pro tips for successful mash conversion, DIY chalkboard kegerator, and more

Find Recipes Start your free trial Brew Day Bulletin Dear Homebrewer, It's sugaring season here in Vermont, so we are adding Maple Imperial Stout [Free] and Maple Amber Lager [Digital Members] recipes to our to-brew list. Take a tour of a state-of-the-art homebrewery [Digital Members] that was converted from an old rotting shed. Get a pro brewer's tips on what makes a successful mash conversion [Free]. This week's Mr. Wizard columns are on understanding pitching rates [Free] and brewing cask ale beer in a bag [Digital Members]. Spend a weekend converting an old fridge to a Chalkboard Kegerator [Free] and you'll never need to worry about bottling and labeling again. Or, build this project to put a spigot in a glass carboy [Digital Members] so you can transfer your beer with just a turn of the valve. Cheers! Brad Ring Publisher Read & Brew: Free Content For All Recipe Maple Imperial Stout (5 gallons/19 L, all-grain) OG = 1.076*  FG = 1.021 IBUs = ~35  SRM = 45  ABV = 9.6% * Prior to maple syrup addition Ingredients 10.5 lbs. (4.8 kg) 2-row pale malt 2 lbs. (0.9 kg) Munich malt  1 lb. (0.45 kg) flaked oats 1 lb. (0.45 kg) Carafa® III malt Read more Join BYO for in-depth, four-hour online workshops taught by trusted experts Don't miss five upcoming live and interactive online workshops on All-Grain Brewing, Recipe Formulations, Brewery Quality Control, and Homebrew Experiments. Article Successful Mash Conversion: Tips from the Pros Sitting around a mash vessel waiting for an hour to an hour and a half miracle mash conversion, wondering what is actually going on? There is nothing to watch. You can't hear anything. All you smell is the sweet aroma of the mash. At least during fermentation, the production of carbon dioxide gives an air lock or blow-off tube activity you can observe. How do you know if your mash is converting? How do you know when your conversion is complete? Read more Ask Mr Wizard Understanding Pitching Rates Q I'm trying to make sense of BYO's latest article on yeast pitching rates and correlate it with yeast suppliers' data. The rule of thumb is 1 million cells/ milliliter/°Plato. I get that. However, when I go to Wyeast Labs (www.wyeast.com), they not only reference this formula, but also indicate the following interesting points about their Activator product: 1. Each package contains >100 billion yeast cells 2.  Each package is designed to successfully ferment 5 gallons of wort with an SG ≤1.060 (or 15 °P) When you apply the rule of thumb to the second bullet above, you are led to believe that each smack pack contains 280 billion cells (not 100). Are they not following the very rule of thumb they recommend? I suppose 280 billion is greater than 100 billion, but do I really want to purchase a product that is only guaranteed to have ~1⁄3 of the yeast cells I need for my 1.060 wort? A Wizard responds: I went to the Wyeast Web site to do a little bit of recon before answering this question. I found the site very informative and did see much of the information described in your question. What I could not find was any reference to the general rule you cite in your question.  However, there is a chart on pitching rate that you may find very useful.    Read More Project Chalkboard Kegerator The first-time homebrewer usually finds the entire beer-making process new and enjoyable. The second time around, bottling is usually seen as tedious, yet still rewarding. Every time after that scraping labels and sanitizing all those bottles is seen as the chore it truly is. A few years ago a beat-up old refrigerator fell into my lap. Converting it into a kegerator was the only logical thing to do. Read More For Digital Members Only Members get access to thousands of recipes, all new BYO issues and more. Try membership risk free for 14 days.* Brew Better. Try Membership, Free!* Recipe Maple Amber Lager (5 gallons/19 L, all-grain) OG = 1.044*  FG = 1.008 IBU = 23  SRM = 17  ABV = 5.8% * Prior to maple syrup addition Ingredients 6 lbs. (2.7 kg) Pilsner malt 1.5 lbs. (0.68 kg) Munich malt 0.5 lb. (0.23 kg) melanoidin malt    Read more Article Inside a State-of-the-Art Homebrewery My journey into homebrewing started like the majority of us; walking into my local homebrew supply shop and declaring, "I want to brew! What do I do?" I started small with extract brews, but quickly started to dream of brewing all-grain batches and building my own equipment to do so. I'm an engineer by trade, which fueled my build of a three-kettle HERMS (heat exchange recirculating mash system) with electric controller, all of which I built myself from scratch. All was right in the world. Read more Ask Mr. Wizard Cask Ale Beer In A Bag Q Here in Alaska, before the pandemic, two breweries served real ale from a beer engine. Now it's just one, and it's a few hundred miles away, so I'm attempting it myself, conditioning in a bag (bag-in-a-box style). So far, I'm not achieving what I hoped. I'm priming with wort, and put some in bottles, some in bags. The beer from the bottles is fine, but the hand-pumped beer from the bags lacks proper carbonation. The bags expand quite a bit, so maybe the additional headspace is the problem? Some have suggested I should vent the bags, but I worry the venting will also keep the beer from reaching optimal carbonation; we don't vent bottle-conditioned beer, right? Please help. A The bag-in-box method has never really been common among homebrewers, but is a technique used by many pubs around the world. The reason your beer is not carbonating is that a rigid vessel is required to house the bag. This allows the beer to be pressurized above atmospheric pressure and to become carbonated.    Read more Project Put a Spigot in a Glass Carboy The idea for this issue's project came from a BYO reader. Ronald E. Kingery of Green-town, Indiana wrote to me a while back, asking, "Has there ever been a project in a past issue that dealt with adding a tap (or spigot) to a glass carboy? I am very interested in attempting to do this so I can get completely away from siphoning." Read more *Free Trial Terms and Conditions: For new members and subscribers only. Limit one per customer. Additional auto-renewal terms apply. See product checkout page for details.  Copyright © 2021 Brew Your Own, All rights reserved. You were subscribed to the newsletter from Brew Your Own Our mailing address is: Brew Your Own 5515 Main St Manchester Center, VT 05255 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.