Recent content by BadgerBrewer

Very nice set up! Well done. I have been cooking the idea of going all electric and this is a very clean looking rig. Any chance you can throw in a few pics of the insides of your kettles?

You sure can. I think there are a few threads on the topic on this site, but basically you can just take your bottling wand and insert it into your tap faucet (or picinic faucet). Purge most of the gas out of your keg to reduce foaming, and fill your bottle. When you pull your wand out, there...

Flomaster, just shot over the funds from PayPal. Muchas Gracias amigo!

I will take 2 please!

I suspect that the black stuff is oxydation on your copper. Should not be a problem, just make sure to put it into your boil kettle when there is 15 minutes left in the boil to sanitize it and you should be fine. when you chill and pull it out of the pot it will look like brand new copper!

It is fine to use 5 gallons as your batch size, but just realize that you will end up with 4 - 4.5 gallons in your keg at the end of the process since there will be a fair sized yeast cake/trub pile left when you rack over to your keg.

When doing this method, do people generally use whole leaf hops in the tea ball or can you use pellet hops? I use gelatin when kegging, plus a cold crash method to make the beer crystal clear. I want to avoid clouding the beer up again if I try this method with pellets as they tend to turn...

I use a 50' IC (1/2") which drops my 10 gallon batches down to 110 degrees or so in 15 minutes using warm 85 degree Texas ground water. I added a sump pump from Harbour Freight ($24 with discount coupon) that moves 1600+ gph. I fill my HLT with water and ice and pump that cold water through my...

Age it cold to clarify/condition. No reason to keep at room temp unless you don't have room in the serving system. Fermentation is done after 7 weeks (if your hydrometer tells you so). Done is done. Cold helps clarify.

CO2 man. 48 hours at 30psi and you are ready to rock. Why wait if you are serving from your keg?? After 48 hours purge and condition as long as you want to clear. Usually no more than a few days...a few weeks at most and crystal clear.

3 hours? man...wait at least 3 days and then push the panic button. You should be fine provided your santitation/washing methods were sound

Mine either. Just make sure to run the valve only partially open rather than full so decrease the suction from your MLT. I leave the MLT wide open but restrict my pump 'out' valve to half way or less to avoid a brick of grains.

I have been using a pre-chiller for my IC and whirlpool device as the ground water in Texas is about 85 degrees. Anyone have a better set up than a pre-chiller with an IC? I have 50' of 3/8" tubing I can always make into a CFC, but want to avoid if possible.

No blow off tube for this guy...I use Fermcap in my fermentation buckets now. Even my blowoff tube gets clogged. No more issues once I switched to the drops! Awesome stuff!

You can always use Fermcap drops to control your krausen levels. This is a shot of my Black IPA I brewed a month ago (turned out AWESOME), and ever since this I am now a disciple of Fermcap! Use it in the boil and use it in the fermenter. I also use a drop when checking my hydrometer to...