Recent content by Mike_A

A while back I picked up a 15 gallon used rye barrel, and aged an imperial stout in it. I've since racked the stout out. My wedding is coming up on Halloween, and my fiancé suggested we paint the keg black, or sand it down to remove any distillery markings, and then have people sign it with...

It's been a while since I posted on HBT but I did a slightly more in-depth pictorial and put the bill of materials for my brew stand build on Reddit's homebrewing page yesterday, so I thought you guys may get some use out of it too. I know I posted some stuff about it before, but the reddit...

Unless it's made of polycarbonate - which it probably isn't, more likely is acrylic - it's definitely not good past 200 degrees Fahrenheit (and that's a serious stretch). You need to use chemical sanitizers like StarSan to sanitize these rather than boiling them. Sharp temerature changes to...

Any Noble hops are a good start - they are usable in a wide variety of brews. I myself favor Hallertauer (Hersbrucker or Mittelfruh if I have to specify) simply because I use them most frequently. Keep an eye out for which hops are rare to find during certain times of the year, and perhaps...

This is exactly what I do. I have two BG-14's (banjos) on the HLT and BK, and I use a mini-banjo (BG-12?) on the MLT. I must say though, that on average with a thin-walled aluminum kettle on a ~20lb grain + 30qt mash, I lose about 1*F every 10 minutes. The small banjo is capable of heating...

@bigbeergeek: Yep, I was fully aware of the negative side effects that would ensue by rushing a beer through fermentation by all means possible. I agree it would be wise to give the yeast time to clean up, but I was more concerned with getting them to flocc out rather than clean up the...

The starter was 2L and the batch was 10G, actually closer to 11G. And I did mean grain to GLASS in 4 days, which I accomplished. I'm sure it will taste better in the coming week(s) depending on how long it lasts. For carbing, I force carbed by hooking up to a CO2 tank at room temp at...

Tried this on a low gravity pale/wheat recipe yesterday. Started at 1.041 and it's down to 1.014 after 24 hours. Used starter ratio of 1L/5g on a stir plate with pure O2 in the starter and in the fermenters. Fermenters are sitting in a warm spot now, around 72F. Fermentation kicked off in 6...

I've been using three of these kettles now for about 4 months. No complaints. I boiled them with a full pot of water for an hour each, and when I clean them I just hit them with a hose and a green scrubby, and they come very clean. The pots empty are pretty light - the gauge of the walls is...

I don't know about the paint, but as far as the casters on the side so you can tip it upright, I would be concerned about the heat. I use banjos, and I know that on my weldless stand, the area you have the casters drawn get extremely warm. You would need some sort of heat shielding for that to...

Payment sent! About how long did it take last time from day the order was placed to delivery?

I do not agree that the sample size is sufficient to cover all demographics. 1000 people is not a very large sample at all, and their confidence interval is +/-4%, which is to say in reality beer could be as high as 40% and wine as low as 31%. For their sample means to be so close (36% vs 35%)...

Just emailed you bmason, committed to the split w/ samie and demon plus I asked to swap out the 2-row you had for me with a bag of GW Vienna. Otherwise, looks good!

Either missing a quantity on the "malt extract" line, or something's seriously wrong with that recipe. Just like he said, that's like 1.010 which won't even get you 1% ABV really...

Samie I'd be willing to split the sack either 1/2 (Demon), 1/4 (you), 1/4 (me) or 1/3 each. Demon, do you want 1/2 sack or 1/3 sack? Let's get this decided asap and I'll email bmason with the final decision.