Recent content by HopDr

My 2 cents- consider White Labs super high gravity yeast instead of champagne yeast. Either will work, but I have had better experience with WL. I have a 120-type beer I did back in December and it kept chugging along with no sign of slowing down up to about 19 or 20%, which is when I stopped...

I think the issue is there is no simple answer. Obviously it is a spectrum of effect that different pitching rates will have on your beer, it is not that once you hit a certain number your beer will be different or not good. If I remember correctly, JZ or JP or James Spencer or one of those...

I have the one branded "Midwest" from HD and it works fine.

I am certainly no electrical expert, but you pretty much need 2 for the elements and one for the power switch if you are planning on having them switched I think. How would you wire it with one? On the other hand, you could forego the switching to select the element that you want on- leave the...

I am doing an almost identical build now, sort of a simplified version of Kal's. I was planning on using 2 elements/2 PIDs but otherwise pretty much the same set up as you. I thought about doing 1 PID, but unless I am missing something (which is very possible) you will still need 2...

A couple thoughts- 1) Agree with upping the hops to balance it out more. 2) Be careful in calculating your efficiency and basing your grain bill on this. You have it set to 75% mash efficiency, which you may well achieve (but maybe not) but your total efficiency may be much lower. That is...

^This. But have you been doing this all along to your water and getting some good batches?

Ravenous BluebOrangeWit. Gimme my T-shirt!

I do. In general you always want temp changes for the yeast to be gradual, throwing them into 70 or 80 degree water from the fridge is not a good idea.

I have 2 batches of different tripels that I used 3787 for this winter and fermented in my basement with ambient temp around 60F (range is about 58-61F). They came out with plenty of Belgian flavor, no complaints. The temp in the beer was about 65. I did not use a starter but pitched 2 packs...

I have that pot and I put a sight valve/thermometer in it from brewhardware dot com. Works great and very cheap. The sight glass should be as low as possible, the limiting things being where the bevel of the bottom of the pot starts. That one has the thermometer built in and therefore very...

You might be ok with a 500 ml starter- did you use a stir plate? I am doing an almost identical beer (IIPA with OG 1.085, WLP090) this weekend and mrmalty and BeerSmith say my starter should be 560 ml. But that is with a stir plate, without it it says it should be about 2L. Either way leave...

It is your beer so do what you want, but here are a couple thoughts: What exactly are you going for when you say 'hoppy pilsener'? Do you want american IPA type flavors and aroma? How hoppy do you want? Even 'hoppy' examples of pilseners still mean the aroma is balanced with the light...

Hops Growing - Home Brew Forums All the answers you could hope for.

That's not cold, it is a good temp. Most yale easts will work very well at that ambient temp. It may be a little warm for ideal Scottish ale and a little cool for ideal finishing of Belgians, but you should be ok for the most part with almost ale yeast. If you check out the yeast company's...