Recent content by jerrylotto

I use an HDPE fermenter (FastFerment) most of the time and have never had a problem with oxygen ingress as long as the lid seal was snug. I'd be much more suspicious of the bottling bucket. I do a closed transfer from my fermenter to a keg, individually dose bottles with sugar solution and...

I generally don't bottle more than a couple of six packs from my keg for each batch I brew. I start by boiling a sugar solution to sanitize it at a concentration such that 5 ml contains 1 tsp of sugar. After sanitizing my bottles in the oven, I add 5 ml of the sugar solution to each. I fill...

I have all Rubbermaid products for holding things like DME and dextrose. I line them with plastic trash bags, free ease of handling and transfer. Grain is mostly stored in the sacks or came in.

For a while I was calibrating my tilts with my phone and using my tablet to monitor fermentation. I didn't realize that the calibration didn't carry between the two devices. When I finally figured this out, I used the tablet to calibrate and monitor. I get a pretty accurate reading from either...

Good description of the process. One thing I would add is "tare your empty kegs" so you have a way to determine how empty or full they are.

Why not do a gravity assisted transfer under pressure? As long as you can get your source vessel higher than your destination vessel, you should be able to start a siphon as long as there's a continuous loop so that displaced gas in the destination vessel can return to the source.

I bought a cheap one and replaced the valve with a screw dial type regulator like the CR25-100 -CR25 CR Series Brass Pressure Relief Valve, 0-100 PSI Adjustable Pressure Range

Correction, the liquor for my second mash comes from the second runnings from the first mash. Most of the wort from the first mass is set aside.

I brew all of my stouts this way. The first mash is al base malt (half of the total weight), and I sparge with water. The second mash is the remainder of the base malt and all of the other grains mashed in the wort resulting from the first mash, also sparged with water.

That said, yeast grows and multiplies much more rapidly at a pH higher than 5.0 (5.5 is optimal), but fermentation is more efficient if the pH reading is below 5.0.

Exactly. Too high of a mash pH is a problem for efficiency and conversion and can extract tannins, but too low of a mash pH will simply thin out the mouthfeel. Mashing all about enzymatic reactions and has nothing to do with yeast. Adjustments after the boil are another matter entirely.

Temperature control is critical for two phases of brewing; mashing and fermentation. A chest freezer and oil pan heater both plugged into a temperature controller (Inkbird ITC-308 wifi) with the probe in a thermo well is the only way I'll ferment. Keeps the temperature within a 3° or 4° range...

Only if there is condensation on the sides returning to the pot.

I was talking about mash pH - that takes the grain bill into account.

That is what I usually do