Recent content by Lost

That's just 6.5 gallons which is barely enough for a vigorous 4 gal boil... maybe. You're asking for boil overs with a 5 gal batch. I know you said you don't often do 5 gal batches but you need to think in terms of that because one day you will start kegging and corny kegs hold 5 gals. You...

John Palmer recommends "1 tablespoon of bleach to 1 gallon of water (4 ml per liter)" see http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter2-2-3.html You don't have to rinse at this concentration, supposedly, but like others I would be tempted to rinse. IF you do rinse, USE BOILED WATER. Tap water...

While larger than you need and not something that can be placed on a stove, a keg can be had for around $40. If there isn't one for sale already and you're in a rush just place a "wanted" add. I've gotten a couple from people who (separately) claimed their liquor store wouldn't take them back...

I would favor bleach for sanitizing over oxiclean or an "oxyclean-like" product. Oxyclean is just washing soda (sodium carbonate) and sodium percarbonate in a 60-40 ratio supposedly. Sodium percarbonate breaks down into hydrogen peroxide and more washing soda. I would think that you could get...

ethanol (vodka) and isopropanol (rubbing alcohol) sanitize best at 60 to 70 percent (120 to to 140 proof). Too strong a concentration like the 90 percent rubbing alcohol well evaporate too quickly. Concentrations less than 60 percent are too weak to do much. So the short answer to your...

Since you plan on fly sparging you need to think about grain bed depth. I do 10 gal batches and that is a lot of beer, I think I'd get tired of the brew by the time I made it through more than that. But all this is a personal opinion and depends on how much beer you and your friends drink. I...

Last I heard pbw contained sodium carbonate (washing soda), sodium percarbonate (breaks down into sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide), sodium metasulicate (available as tsp alternative, use red devil brand), and a surfactant which is probably sds (aka sodium lauryl sulfate). active...

You guys are doing it wrong, you SUCK on the RECEIVING carboy which should also have a carboy cap. Placing a vacuum cleaners house loosely over the fitting on the receiving vessel will generate plenty of suction. I use the shop vac for this I don't do anything special like sanitizing the...

It can result in temp oscillations or over shooting. The idea is to measure the temp of the liquid the pid is actually heating via the element (i.e. the hlt). The temp of the wort exiting the coil is a function of the hlt tank (controlled by the pid) and the temp of the wort coming in, and the...

Putting the coil in a small vessel will get you faster temp changes if you can live with the trouble of plumbing and heating a fourth vessel. I would add though that the temp probe should be placed in the heat exchange tank in contact with the water you are actually heating. Do not place the...

I bet your crush is too fine. Try making it coarser or get a more consistent mill than a corona. Do you have these problems when you have the grain crushed by a LHBS? You could also try adding rice hulls, if that alleviates the problem then the issue is almost certainly with the crush of the...

No, you don't need a spa panel then. It's usually cheaper to buy the spa panel which comes with a gfci breaker than it is to just buy the gfci breaker itself. I know, strange.

Andy, You can use one pump, just make it a two tiered setup. I use gravity to drain the hot water out of the HLT but use the pump to recirculate the wort through the coil. You set it up so that both the boil kettle and mash tun can get pumped through the HERMS coil (use a diverter valve to...

How about lactic acid? That's what I always used when fly sparging. Never thought about other acids, any difference between them? I don't suppose it would hurt to watch the ph in a batch sparge but one of the pluses of batch sparging is supposed to be that you don't have to watch the ph. I've...

My experience has been that decoction mashing is not worth the headache and anxiety over hitting target temps. If you're willing to relax and not worry so much about specific temps then it's a fine tool but no magic bullet. The way to do it is to remove the thickest two thirds of the mash - a...