Recent content by AstroBrew

Thanks! I didn't think to check welding/fire extinguisher. Duh!

Hey Chicago homebrewers! Where are the best places to refill my CO2 tank in Chicago? I've used NFC and AirGas, but I'm wondering if there are other places in the city. I live in Hyde Park and driving all the way up to the North side for gas can be a pain (plus my kegerator has sprung a gas...

Brewed this up yesterday. Came out real nice. I used all Nugget for the 90 min addition and replaced the Santiam with Hallertau. Tettnang would have been better I guess, but I won't be heart-broken if it's not a dead-on clone. Also, I think I toasted my wheat a little too dark. I was going...

Awesome, thanks. I don't have Santiam, either. I'm thinking I'll use Hallertau. What did you substitute?

I'm going to give this a go tomorrow. Did anybody actually home-toast some wheat? I'm thinking I'll give it a try today and see if it's worth using. Also, how does the bittering come out? Should I up the hopping to get closer to the real thing?

A little follow-up: Of my two packs, one (5 mos. old) didn't swell at all. The other (3 mos. old) swelled only a little. I took the un-swelled one back to my LHBS and they replaced it. I pitched both packs into a 2 l starter on a stir plate. It wasn't the most active, vigorous starter I've...

Oh man, this is worrisome. I just bought two packs of 2206 (one of which has a mfg date in June) for a pils I'm brewing this weekend. Gonna make a 2l starter with them. I just smacked the packs. Now I'm playing wait-and-see.

No problem! I've gotten so much out of this forum, it's ridiculous. And I think you could still do a whirlpool with an immersion chiller. I used to just swirl an immersion chiller around in the cooling wort to create a whirlpool before I had a counter-flow. The Jamil-o-Chill also uses an...

I think there are lots of good reason to chill rapidly, but I am not convinced that increasing the amount of cold break is one of them. If you can cite a reference that states otherwise, I'll eat my words, but cold break is a precipitation process and depends on the temperature-dependent...

Agree, cold break is fine. As I understand it, in most pro breweries all the cold break ends up in the fermenter. And the size or strength (for lack of a better word) of the break doesn't depend on how fast your cool the wort, just how cold you get it. Now that's not to say everything that is...

I think this is a good point. If I understand the results of this experiment by Kai: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Effects_of_mash_parameters_on_fermentability_and_efficiency_in_single_infusion_mashing a longer mash at a given temperature yields a more fermentable wort (see...

So I've been doing a lot of low temperature mashes lately to dry my beers out. While I'm a patient guy, I was starting to wonder if I really needed to wait 90 minutes to get complete starch conversion. I've never bothered with iodine tests as it seems a little too subjective for me. But then...

I use a heating pad. When I have just one thing fermenting, I'll wrap the heating pad around the carboy. If I'm doing two at a time, I'll just leave it in the fridge. Seems to work great.

Thanks for the replies! Tubing is cheap enough to replace, it's just annoying when I'm greeted by the surprise growth of mold when I need to rack something. I brew in my walk-out basement and let's just say it's not the most mold-free environment to brew in. Good sanitation practices have...

I hang my hoses to dry, but everyone once in a while they develop some mold growth that just won't come off no matter how long I soak it in PBW. So, what's the best way to store hoses? I'm thinking of storing them in a bucket of water or StarSan. Is this a good idea?