Recent content by Effington

I used 24 oz. of water to 0.5 lbs ground coffee. I filtered about half as much water out of the grounds so it did absorb a good bit. Maybe a courser grind would be better, but the coffee I did extract was perfect for my purposes.

I used Knob Creek and had great results. Wish I had used vanilla. Seems like soaking them with the bourbon along with the oak would be a good idea to me.

I backsweetened my most recent batch at bottling and it turned out just fine. The sugar dissolves right away.

I'm in agreement with this. For the budget minded, the King Kooker is not a bad choice. But orion is right - the jet burner is loud and guzzles propane. Blichmann is the way to go. That said, I've done a few full boils on the jet burner with great success. It certainly works and will fit my...

Yes, I've found the big ones are called demijohns. I've seen them up to 15 gallons and they may get even bigger. Of course, there are lot of non-glass options that are large as well, like both metal or plastic conicals.

Enough? I can't get enough thoughts on it! I'd really like to add a pump at some point, but what drew me to the King Kooker was its potential for an easy, gravity fed system. My HLT is a plastic bucket with a heating element built in. Strange, I know, but in testing it seems to keep water a...

I have not brewed on it yet due to some nasty cold weather in the northeast, but I may brew on it this weekend thanks to some unseasonably warm temps this week.

It looks like things are going to work out just fine. In the past month I have received and assembled the King Kooker, plus a 10 gallon Megapot with valve and brewmometer, and a keggle I've been holding onto for use a mash tun, with new ball valve. Behind it on the floor you can see the...

My thoughts exactly - if you use the Kmeta and sorbate to stabilize then carbonating is out of the question. This step kills the yeast so that the pee can be backsweetened. I do wish more wine (and beer) recipes explained more about the "why" of each step, but learning from experience is...

I have a few bottles that are nearly 3 years old. I had one a couple weeks ago. The bourbon and oak flavors are pronounced, but the beer is smooth. Unfortunately some of the beer characteristics are gone. Still enjoyable, certainly still good.

That should work fine - my only concern with that would be lifting the brewpot onto the burner with 6+ gallons of wort in it. It would be much easier to gravity feed right from one burner to the other. Otherwise, I feel like I wouldn't be taking advantage of the offset burner setup. But it...

It's a 3 gallon recipe. Most blueberry wines call for about 3 lbs of blueberries per gallon. With 10 lbs of blueberries, I figured a 3 gallon recipe would give me more blueberry flavor and so far, so good.

Some blueberry skeeter pee I just racked to secondary: I'm hoping it clear up to a nice transparent purple.

Mine just arrived - I haven't opened the box yet, but on the outside it says that it's not suitable for turkey frying. Anyone know why? I thought maybe I could use it to try my hand at turkey frying next Thanksgiving, and I'm not sure why this would be different from any other burner. Maybe just...

The Kiwanis nearby has a blueberry sale each summer in 10 lb quantities. I created this wine recipe to use them all in a 3 gallon batch. 10 lbs fresh blueberries, frozen 1 campden tablet, crushed 1 tablespoon acid blend 1 tablespoon yeast nutrient 1/2 teaspoon wine tannin 1.5 teaspoons...