New to Brewing

Also, if you need a better deal on bulk hops than the typical online homebrew store, check out a place like yvhops.com or hopsdirect.com and buy in bulk.

 

You can make great beers with extract and even kits, but you need to know a bit and possibly adjust the method more than the recipe. ie: Vikeman is right about moving the hops to later for more aroma, though you cant just shuffle your hops around willy nilly. To note, the second kit (I think) with 2 oz of Columbus in the boil. That would give you a clean but strong bitterness. Without some late hops to give more flavor and aroma there's not much you would identify with the IPAs you listed. Why they waste Cascade at 60 minutes and put the Columbus at 30 is goofy to me but that's another whole conversation. @Homebrew42 wrote a great extract advice piece a long time ago. Maybe he can share it.

 

Question: has anyone ever tried to can homebrew in Mason Jars? I was thinking about trying it out, but wanted to know what you all might have to say first...

Thanks for any thoughts here!

 

I haven't tried it. I'm not sure how well they would seal without the heat that's typically applied when mason jars are sealed for food storing. You'd also have to either store them in a dark room or inside of a box since they don't have the darkened glass that bottles do.

What's the reason you'd want to do this?

 

you probably can, I can think of reasons for doing this short term i.e. a couple of days with the jars jammed down inside a six pack holder, but over the period of say a week or two, I think light would not be your friend

 

One version of what I picture as Mason jars (canning jars) would seem to me to be too thin-walled and possibly not able to take the pressure from bottle conditioning. I wouldn't risk it.

 

I had this same issue the first time I brewed (also the BSG IPA kit!) so I decided to ask the owner of my LHBS. He told me to purchace a large sieve that can fit over most of your brew pot. Here is the procedure (it works really well for removing sediment):

1.When you are done steeping your grains remove the bag and place it in the sieve over another pot/bottling bucket.

2. Cut a slit in the grain bag and open it up wide making sure the grains still sit on top of the bag in the sieve.

3. Slowley pour your wort through the grains so they filter through into the bottling bucket. (Acts similar to a carbon filter used in fishtanks)

4. Once you have filtered it into the other container repeat the previous steps to get the wort back into your kettle.

5. Disgard the grains and continue on to your boil.

The first time I did this I was skeptical that it would have much of an effect but it worked really well! I had no visible sediment from the grains at all! The only thing I have contemplated doing different is possibly buying some large coffee filters to put in the sieve to make it a cleaner process.

Good Luck and Cheers!

Matt