Recent content by rancineb

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I'll definitely look into each of these ideas.

Running into a bit of trouble with our brewing during these winter months. We store our home brews in my unfinished basement and the temperature is sitting around 60 degrees which is too low for the yeast to work. Ideally, we'd like it about 5 degrees warmer. Our first beer came out a little...

We just take the boil pot and put it in ice with a wort chiller. We don't have a separate chill pot. I'll definitely try the coffee filter approach and see how it goes.

Sorry for being MIA. Glad to know it won't matter too much as long as we're careful in extracting the beer. We have it fermenting in a carboy right now and plan on doing a siphon for our bottling. After a couple days I can already tell a difference from the hops settling to the bottom and the...

We just finished doing our first brew and have a question about filtering after the boil. As we poured the wort from the kettle into the carboy, we tried to filter as much as we could to catch the used hops, but some does get through. From your experience, does it make a difference if there is...

I just ordered a Coleman Xtreme cooler so that should be fine with some blankets around it. I'll be doing this in my basement so I'll be sure to place it on some blankets as well so the cold cement floor doesn't affect the temperature.

Thanks for the feedback. I was looking to get the Coleman Xtreme but it wasn't available in the store so I'll need to order it. Figured I'd buy the cheap one first and do a test before ordering the Xtreme. When you mention preheating, do you mean putting warm water in the cooler and then...

For those who made their own mash tun out of a cooler, what type of cooler did you use to maintain the temperature best? I bought a generic Coleman and in the middle of doing a test but it doesn't appear like it'll be able to hold a temp of 150 for an hour. Curious if the better coolers made a...

I think I'll be fine with the vinyl tubing I found. It's similar to the same stuff I've found in numerous DIY plans for a mash tun. If it wears over time, I'll replace it with something different. Thanks for your thoughts.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll check out some of the AG kits and some of the stout recipes on the site. Glad to hear that my assumption was correct that stouts can mask some of the mistakes and a good starter brew.

Ah, the Firkin. Love that place. We go there at least once a week. Have you been to Happy Gnome in St. Paul?

FYI, I plan on going all-grain so not looking for a kit but a good, simple recipe. I'll look for the java stout you mentioned. Nice. I grew up in Libertyville, then lived in Chicago after college and now back in Grayslake. Got a few friends that moved up to Minneapolis.

Opps... I knew that. That's what I get for multi-tasking at work. :)

Not a big fan of the dry stouts. I think I might look at a coffee stout. I think it won't be too bad if I'm just adding coffee rather then also adding chocolate like the breakfast stouts have.

I'm talking about the clear vinyl tubing that I will use to transfer the mort from my mash tun to my pot. Are you saying that you use the stiff CPVC tubing for your mash tun instead of the flexible clear vinyl tubing?