Recent content by anbowden

C47866F8-DA9E-49C1-B5F1-FFDC1D25941E by anbowden posted Mar 9, 2018 at 2:22 PM Unfortunately I don’t have a ball valve on my kettle. I improvised though...did you know milk jugs are hdpe?

After the hot wort is in the cube I know you’re supposed to leave it on it’s side to help keep the lid area sanitized, right? At what point is it ok to put the cube upright? In my case I can’t put my hdpe “cube” in the ferm chamber on its side.

Hey guys, I’ve got a no chill brew day planned for tomorrow and just realized I don’t have a funnel rated for boiling wort. Mine is the typical 10” plastic funnel. Any ideas on something that will get me by in the meantime?

I had a rasberry hefe that severely clogged the dip tube and liquid post on my keg. I should've used a tertiary fermenter, shame on me. But in the mean time I had 5 gallons of delicious beer I couldn't get out! I only have two kegs and second one is full, so I couldn't rack to a new keg. So...

At the 48 hour mark I finally started to see some early signs of fermentation. Now at hour ~53 its taking off. Hopefully it will finish before late tonight so I can refrigerate to decant tomorrow. It's like Tom Petty said: the waiting is the hardest part.

I don't see any hairline cracks in the thief. If it were the culprit, wouldn't the beer be infected from the beginning of fermentation? And then the sample post-fermentation would taste terrible? I'll look into the co2, thanks.

I have a Haier mini-fridge with an STC-1000 controller. For brews with US-05, I hold at 62 for about 4-5 days and then slowly ramp up the temp (about 1 degree per day). Confirm with fermometer.

I've been using filtered water and I treat with 1/4 campden tablet. I'm using a glass carboy without spigot for fermentation vessel and I siphon it out. Any other ideas? Thanks

I've had my last several extract beers turn out a little off, an off flavor that doesn't totally ruin the beer but its borderline not drinkable. In retrospect, I'm convinced it's origin is post fermentation. I use healthy yeast and temperature controlled fermentation chamber. About 3-4 weeks...

Thanks for sharing your experience. I have until Friday morning, so I have 3 days from the time I made it yesterday. How confident would you be using that yeast starter? I actually meant, "Any way to confirm I'm not building up from a tiny amount of living yeast cells? (and maybe not...

Past the 24 hour mark, is it too late to pitch a new packet/vial? I'd rather not waste my yeast starter.

Thanks for the suggestions. I don't have a refractometer unfortunately. I'm doing the ol intermittent swirling technique, no stir plate. I 'm thinking it's more translucent than "milky", but it looks like the trub level has increased a little. Is it possible I'm trying to grow from such a...

I made a yeast starter with a 4 month old Wyeast 2565 (Kolsch) packet. 20 hours later, no activity. Is it too early to call this yeast DOA(it was shipped during the summer)? Is it too late to pitch a new packet of yeast into my yeast starter wort? Thanks, Andy

I'd like to pull a sample from a keg thats been naturally carbonating for 1.5 weeks at 72 degrees. The beer was already conditioned before kegging. My understanding is I shouldn't attempt to pour from the keg with CO2 because it will be all foam (keg is currently warm). Is my best bet to pull...