Recent content by drew91

I boil mine with my starter "wort" right in the Erlenmeyer flask. The chances of anything surviving that are pretty minimal. That way there's no reason to worry about any little scratches or grooves as a source of contamination. They're designed to be autoclave-safe, so the heat from boiling...

It generally takes me between 6 and 7 hours for a 5.5 gallon batch, but that includes everything from start to cleanup and a 90 minute boil. I'm still getting used to my equipment and if I had a second burner I bet I could trim a solid 1.5-2 hours off of that.

Well the hop particles are noticeably reduced after the first three pints got pulled, so hopefully most of what got racked over will have settled out. They're not a problem other than aesthetics.

I wouldn't, but only because I'd be worried that the liquid out tube might get clogged. Most people use it in secondary.

Gelatin seems to help. :)

So I managed to get this kegged up and carbonated and pulled the first pint. It turned out really well. Dumb name, but a good beer. Nice and bitter, could use a little more aroma. It also finished a little lower than anticipated (yay, more booze!) at 1.010 FG. My only real complaint...

Youtube has a walkthrough. YouTube - Cursors 10 (5 cursors, max score)

Gypsum is mainly for adding hardness to water and reducing pH. It also contributes calcium and sulfate ions. I use it when I'm starting with RO water. It's probably not that big of a deal that you forgot to add it. If you like the beer you sampled that's all that's really important.

I'll echo the "tastes metallic" sentiment. I drank a second one a few days later to see if it was any better with lowered expectations and it wasn't. There's 4 left in my fridge that I can't seem to pawn them off on any of my guests. :)

The easiest thing to do would be to weigh it out (if you have a scale with that kind of resolution). 1mL of water is 1.0g. You can just use an eye dropper or similar. Disposable Pipettes from MarketLab Disposable serological pipettes would be slightly pricier, but are still an option...

I just got my cancellation email. :( Too bad, because it was a great deal on the cornies.

Nothing here either. There's a charge pending on my card though, so hopefully my order made it through before they ran out.

It seems like overkill to me (but hey, I'm an overkill kind of guy too). If nothing else it should be interesting. I think you will have a difficult time identifying wild yeast based on morphology, but I also have no practical experience in that area. Hopefully you'll find a way to capture...

You could do it with a 10x eyepiece and 10x objective, but that would only tell you half of the story (the number of cells in suspension). The relevant number you're after is the number of viable cells in suspension. Every culture will have a percentage of dead cells, and that percentage grows...

Thanks for the heads up. 4 more cornies and another Better Bottle for $100 is a pretty good deal IMHO.