Recent content by Phyrst

Just to add to what I said above so I don't scare y'all to death. In all likelyhood, the industrial CO2 probably comes from the same tank at the same plant that makes beverage CO2. The difference is probably only in how they test it. A tanker truck designated for a beverage customer may undergo...

There is such a thing as beverage grade CO2, and you do have to be careful. Carbon Dioxide is produced by collecting and purifying an exhaust gas from some chemical process like a refinery or something. The exhaust gas can have all kinds of nasty stuff in it that has to be removed to make it...

I have yet to find a good way of filtering the wort and transferring it to the carboy. The best method I've found is using leaf hops and using a two quart pitcher to transfer from the kettle through a funnel with a filter in it. I have tried hop sacks with pellets but that doesn't help with the...

Or do you guys use the McCormick Dried Orange Peel?

Awesome. Good info! I've seen them at the LHBS, but I'm always concerned about their age and how long they have been sitting there.

Not yet. As I said earlier this was my first attempt. I foolishly put off my grocery shopping until the night before brew day and went to three different grocery stores looking for valencia oranges. At my third (and by Gawd final!) stop I got the best looking oranges they had. I think this...

Hmmm...that's exactly what I did and I'm not happy with it. Maybe I used the wrong kind of oranges. Anybody have a good/bad experience with naval oranges?

Thanks Nilo. How many ozs of peels do you add and how long do you boil them?

So I tried brewing this roughly based on Wayne's original Blue Moon recipe at the beginning of this thread. It tastes great, but the orange flavor is barely there if at all. I was running around the night before brew day (procrastination, I know) trying to find valencia oranges and came up...

Welcome to Houston. Lot's of great places to go. Saint Arnold Brewery is the big craft brewer in the area. They have regular tours and tastings. The Karbach Brewery is pretty small, but they have tours and tastings on Friday and Saturday nights. Out in Katy there's No Label Brewing which has...

I saw my neighbors sitting in their back yard a few weeks ago so I took them over a sixpack of homebrew. I gave them a raspberry wheat. I know they are BMC drinkers, so I figured it would be a good gateway beer for them into craft brew. They said thanks, but never mentioned if they liked it or...

Brewing a milk stout on Friday and bottling an IPA on Saturday.

With all the grilling, smoking, and brewing I do, I always have four propane tanks at the house, and I always have at least one with a blue cap on it. I never run out of propane. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

I've heard people say you will burn out the compressor. Personally, I don't buy it. I have yet to see a post with someone saying, "Oh no! My compressor died!" In some post long ago somebody had a friend who was an HVAC guy who said it would be a problem. It soon became gospel. The compressor...

Thanks for the feedback. I checked out that Bru'n Water page. Lots of good info there. Looks like I have some homework to do this weekend.