Recent content by gxm

I had an issue with using the tube the hydrometer came in. The tube was so narrow that the hydrometer always clung to the side of the tube. Don't think that would have cut the reading in half though. If you have an open bucket fermenter, you can always just put a sanitized hydrometer directly...

+1 to RDWHAHB Transferring the beer caused some CO2 to come out of solution, and a little bit of oxygen for a couple of days isn't a big deal.

I went out in search of a chest freezer this weekend, and the results have led me in a new direction. My dead freezer has the heat transfer lines on the outside. All the new freezers I looked at keep them internal to the freezer, so they all lose about 2" in interior depth. None of the...

I may be able to fit a few more inches into the depth, and height is flexible with the collar. In the width, I have about 1.5" of play, though this area of the house it out of plumb by about 3/8" over the course of 3 feet, so it may be a little less than 1.5". I can't imagine a fridge wider...

"A quite simple way that will give accuracy up to 0.1% is to boil off all the alcohol and substitute by water. This means boiling down to less than a third of the original volume in most cases, it's not that hard to smell if there are alcohols in the vapour. Fill with water so you have your...

After 2+ years of wonderful service, my chest freezer kegerator has stopped getting cold :( Following internet advice, I tested the resistance on the compressor, and the resistance seemed within the acceptable range, so I replaced the starter & overload. Started it up again, and still no love...

Now that we've insulated our house, I'm starting to plan a walk in cooler in the basement for keg storage and lager fermentation, since I can't rely on my cold basement for brewing lagers anymore. I've read the Deep Six article and thread, and various other threads here on HBT. I've got the...

You can do a decoction if you'd like instead of the melanoidan. I get very good results with melanoidan in Helles, Pils, Bocks, Dunkels, etc. Decoctions are enough of a pain for me that I only do them for high gravity lagers (>1.090) as the improved extract yield makes it worth the time and...

Gotta love taking good notes :) Here is the recipe I used to make 5.25g, mashing at 152F: Caramunich 0.82 Lt Chocolate 0.49 Crystal 150 0.16 Germ Lt Munich 9.81 German Pils 2.80 Which yielded a OG of 76.5 and FG of 22 and 7.2% ABV That is pretty close to the listed...

Yep, you've got that right. I ended up with 90-95% AA when I'd originally planned on 75-80%. On the bright side, SWMBO can get drunk from these :mug:

I used to believe the same thing, that mash temp typically didn't change fermentability by more than 5-10% between the far ends of the my typical mashing range, 149F-158F. My issue is that I went past the far end, effectively mashing at 162-164F. I did 3 mashes, resulting in 6 different...

Sure thing JonK331 http://www.cdn-timeandtemp.com/consumer/products/proaccurate/

I've added Termamyl (liquid alpha amylase) to 3 of the beers at 70F, and after a week all 3 have gone from ~40% AA to ~55% AA. So far so good, I'm going to let them sit for awhile longer.

Thanks ODaniel, another great idea. My understanding was that amalyse works at mash temps. Did you just add it to the beer at fermentation temp?

In actuality, it is accurate to calibrate over a range wider than the one you expect to use.