Recent content by sundevil

In!

Started my sour mash yesterday and plan to brew Sunday so long as the sour mash goes well. (I couldn't get lacto at my LHBS so I just pitched some dry grain into the cooled mash. Fingers crossed.) What kind of cherries is everyone using? Sour, like the type you'd use for a pie?

You're right to have high hopes, this one's excellent. Drinking one now while the steaks are grilling....

Never mind. Yeast cake on the bottom of both jars when I got home. Everyone was right and I'm just impatient. Thanks Home Brew Talk!

So I tested for of flavors last night, and I couldn't detect any. :rockin: But I am not sure the yeast made it for bottling. I filled mason jars half full of the wort, added a little brown sugar, then capped the jars with lids. This morning I opened the jars but there was no noticeable...

Thanks for the advice. I went home on my lunch and pulled a sample from each container. FG was spot on for both, so I divided what I pulled off into two cups, put one cup in the fridge to test for off flavors tonight, and added sugar and sealed the other cups with saran wrap to see if they'll...

Went out to the garage this morning to take a gravity reading before heading to work. Found my fermentation chamber/chest freezer had failed on me. I live in Phoenix, and with the summer heat the STC was reading close to 90 degrees. I don't know when the freezer failed, but unless it was...

Subscribed. What a find!

I'm in AZ too and cooling wort this time of year is tough, especially without an chiller of some kind. GenIke is right, boiling with the full volume of water is ideal. You get better hop utilization, flavor improves, color improves, the list goes on. Do a quick search on here and the reasons...

New design worked great on the latest batch. More heat transferred to the table, but not so hot that I can't live with it. Plus much better boil speed and propane efficiency, and most of the heat directed at the back of the kettle away from me and the ball valves. Time to fab up burner number...

A week in the fermentation chamber and I have the same result. Beautiful hop aroma. Forgive the doubting mind of this newbie. I know my shame...

IN!:mug:

Thanks BierMuncher for the advice and all these great recipes. Centennial Blonde was my first AG and a house favorite!

Just brewed this over the weekend and used my new hop spider for the first time. Great to keep all those hops out of the fermenter, but I didn't notice a significant hop aroma from the wort and and there was very little hop taste either. Just tasted very sweet. I know the hop spider...

After the first run I made a modification to the burner to direct heat away from the front of the kettle, and to bring the kettle closer to the burner. I'll be doing another batch early on July 4th, so I will update on how the new setup works, but here's a pic in the meantime. And just...