Recent content by riderkb

What part of the state are you in. I'm near Appomattox and Farmville.

If a 45 min sparge gets you 75-80% efficiency, then it is perfect.

Sealed up in a low humidity environment - I bet 3 months would be okay.

This is one style that doesn't need much more than fermentables and good fermentation conditions. Most of the flavor comes from the yeast. The best thing you can do is shorten the boil to prevent darkening. After that just control the ferm temps and keg it ASAP. Maybe a partial mash of 50/50...

The most important part is the bulkhead fitting for the drain. On the inside of the bulkhead you can make a manifold or a false bottom, either one will work. On the outside you can use a ball valve or a hose and pinch clamp, either one will work. The bulkhead, though, needs to be bulletproof.

A 10 gal tun is pretty big. How deep will your grain bed be? A shallow bed tends to run fast and channel easily, which results in low efficiency. It still works, but you need to throttle the outflow from the tun to stretch out the sparge. I'm assuming you are fly sparging. If so then you should...

A 5 degree tilt is no problem. The other thing that might help a little is the pin lock size kegs. A 5 gallon pin lock is a little shorter and plumper than a ball lock. I can just squeeze a ball lock in my fridge, but a pin lock fits nicely.

I have heard of pro brewers doing this with 20 bbl conicals, so don't feel too bad.

I had to read this twice. You have a wife who wants to buy you a conical? Please don't tell us she is beautiful, too. Don't rub it in.

Flaked barley needs to be mashed to convert the starch. Equal masses of flaked barley and pale malt should convert on the stovetop in 20 min or less at any temp near 155 F. It will add a lot of body and head to your beer. The other thing that helps is lower fermentation temps. Your foam...

Belgian sour bud light. You are a genius. Bring the current craft brew fads to the BMC swilling masses. Don't forget the hibiscus.

My favorite part of brew day is just before the wort comes to a boil. The stuck sparges and temperature adjustments are over and it is all down hill. The smell of the malt is also at its peak. The foam rising up in the kettle looks cool, too.

When you say German malt, do you mean german wheat malt? If so then the only real problem is the likelihood of a stuck mash. I like malty medium or low gravity beer with a heavy dose of Munich. It will probably clash with the clove from the hefe yeast, but you can use your other yeast instead...

A point or two accuracy is all you can expect with a calculator. There is no reason to try to get your numbers closer than that. If it really bugs you then it is probably best if you skip the calculation.

I quit using recipes and thinking about style guidelines. Mixing and matching malt and hop varieties has kept me interested for a long time. Most of my beers are SMaSHs or maybe two malts and two hops.