Recent content by BigJay13

Thanks guys! After Martin responded I went ahead and weighed out the salts and through them in the bucket with the grain. Hoping to get to this tonight!

I'm going to brew a Cold IPA loosely based off this recipe here: Recipe: Green Cheek It Just Works He says the water profile he uses is: Start with carbon-filtered water that tastes good. Look at your water report and weigh out enough chloride and/or sulfate to hit a 1:1 ratio, 150 ppm of...

So after a couple brews these are the things I found: For whatever reason, recirculation seems to slow down the conversion when compared to my old igloo cooler. I mashed for 90 minutes today (vs 45-60 as that is what I always did with the cooler) and got almost 90% mash Eff. Brewhouse was 76%...

HEX I was referring to chilling method but those are also heat exchangers. You bring up a good point. It actually takes a good amount of time to lower 212 to 180 when recirculating through the PC. Just that amount of time was enough to clog the hop stopper. I was cooing to WP temp Then turned...

So couple points (and I need to make this short while working): Hop stopper will get clogged if it has to run boiling wort, through the PC, back into the kettle to get the whirlpool down to 180-185. That’s the root problem. I need a way to cool down the wort without circulating through the hop...

Ahhh sorry I misunderstood you. I have a similar process with the PC. I could always pull boiling wort into it before the IC drops the temp to help sanitize it. Before installing the hop stopper I would recirc boiling wort for the last 10 minutes to sanitize it. I’m concerned about the cold...

My element is above the hop stopper, but I think I'll try using the IC to just get it down to the lower whirlpool temps. That should minimize cold break. Worst case is it takes forever!

If you recirc through the hop stopper all the cold break goes back in, and you begin to basically filter the wort multiple times. Then when it comes time to run off you do compress it with suction and it takes forever. I'm not concerned about the IC on the element (hop stopper is below it)...

I have had really good NEIPAs when I cool the whirlpool down near 180, but it makes the runoff take forever with my hop stopper. Previously I would run the chiller for a few minutes (plate chiller) to get the temp down. The runoff for 12 gallons would take over an hour doing this. Normally it’s...

Good idea on the weight measurement. I didn’t think about that. I have a sight glass on the HLT that has measurements done by the same method. I’m not too caught up on exact numbers, but not being remotely close to the expected OG us driving me nuts.

Very cool. My mash volume is usually near the autosparge so I probably won't need the straight sections but it's good to know there is an alternative if it doesn't fit. Good idea on alternating the directions! I probably wouldn't have thought of that.

I have a very fancy piece of PVC that I notched gallon marks for 13 and 13.5 gallons. I shoot for pre boil volume of 13.5 gallons. I used a quart measuring cup to get the gallon marks. It's how I did it in the old system too--although that one I had a sightglass on--which I will probably add...

Thanks for the replies everyone. I picked up the locline just now (thanks Bobby). The mill gap is the width of a CC. I'm wondering about the raw ingredients themselves. I haven't checked the diastatic power between Wyermann Pils and MO I have. I'll start sampling the mash gravity every 10...

I've switched over to eHERMS in 15 gallon pots. Ive got a slotted false bottom in my MT and the blichman autosparge. My current process is to underlet into the MT, stir once, begin the recirculation once I transfer the sparge liquor from the BK to the HLT, wait for the temps to stabilize at...

Going electric so it’s in my basement helped me a ton. I’ve got a 10, 8, and 5 year old. Now they want to know when I’m making beer again. Having the brew system outside so I wasn’t able to help with the kids at all did not fly with the wife. If I could do it against (which I can’t and won’t for...