Recent content by scribo

Trub is good, mostly. I pour my cooled wort into my primary and leave about a quart of sediment in the kettle. Lots of trub comes into primary. No prob.

+1 Doctor Rob. The science says shaking is fine. Seems to work for me. Shaking is easy - I just grab a clean plastic bag and soak it in StarSan, use it to cover up the opening of the primary, tilt the primary to a comfortable balance point, and rock side to side vigorously for 2 minutes. The...

I vote for water as the most likely suspect. Perhaps there is one style that seems to go really well for you? My water is very alkaline and gives me awesome stouts and the like, but needs therapy for anything else. Another possibility is temps that are too high because your thermometers...

Ditto what DHack61 says up there. I started stirring really vigorously at mash start and then twice more during the mash and my eff went up a lot. I also use 1.5 qts per pound consistently now, and that makes it easier to stir. My dial thermometer was off by 5 degrees, now I use two digital...

Here is the comment from a guy I contacted at Ward. I don't think he read the whole thread, I only sent him part of it in my email. We analyze carbonate by titrating to end point with phenolphthalein and then titrate to end point of methyl orange. Phenolphthalein gives us carbonate and...

jmf143: I suggest you go with your measured test results - that is your actual data. Certainly there can be noncarbonate sources of alkalinity, so the data points to those as being present. These are not great links, but they do at least provide some reassurance that non carbonate...

That looks like a good site. Thanks for the tip. I am looking hard at temp control as well, I would like to do some real lagering. Let us know how it turns out ?!

You can get to a wort chiller pretty cheaply. I priced 20 foot of 3/8 type L copper coil at Home Depot online for $25. I have had success clamping a cut end of a garden hose onto my copper coild chiller with a hose clamp, one with a screw for tightening. That makes a nice tight fit with...

JeepDiver, That is exactly it. I had Extract set instead of all grain. I knew it was some n00b mistake. Thank you very much.

Any problems with Beersmith calculating erratically? I was working with the trial download and got pretty excited when I plugged in data retrospectively and it was spot-on. Then I tried another recipe and it would not give me a decent OG . . . It insisted on something like 1.015 for 14 lbs...

Might as well age it for a while to see what happens. If it is bacterial, I would expect it to get worse, to the point where you will not have any doubt. If it turns out to be bacterial, I suggest taking extra lengthy measures to sterilize all your stuff before you brew again. Get some...

Good thread. Since I switched to my large (25 gal) stainless pot I have trouble getting my small burner to get 10+ gal to boil in a reasonable time. I had some bubble reflector insulation (silvery, foil-coated, about 1/4 inch thick with bubbles like packaging material, a high R-value...