Recent content by ThePaleAler

O here is how it turned out. FG came in at 1012. Couple of gravity points lower than expected but not by much. Mashed in a little lower than usual so no surprises there. Tastes fantastic. Exactly like it always does.

Thanks for all the help. Never thought about atmospheric pressure. I can see how a drop in pressure can cause some gas to come out of solution. I know I should have taken a hydrometer reading. Usually I am very laid back and take only two readings. OG and a final reading right before...

I have an IPA that i wanted to bottle today. It is a variation of Edwort's Bee Cave IPA. I was rummaging through my fermentation chamber and moved the fermenters around quite a bit and obviously there was some movement of the wort inside the fermenters and maybe even a little splashing...

I would also like to chime in. All the suggestions above are spot on. One critical aspect is recipe and ingredient selection. If you know what kinds of beer you like, and you should probably know after 2 years of brewing, brew the bulk of your beers in these styles. I am all for...

Here is a pic of the deliciousness!

This will do the job. I have a 9 Gal pot and have made a double batch of a blonde ale in one go. Did a bit of math and calculated the gravity of concentrated wort needed and simply topped up my fermenters with bottled water. Think I put 3 Gal in each and topped each up with 2.5 Gal. Bottled...

Bottled my batch this morning. OG of 1.081, FG of 1.014. Gives me 8.8 ABV. Really strong citrus hop on the nose, and the sample was absolutely delicious. Expected it to be really harsh still but it was as smooth as puddin! Ended up spending 4 weeks in the primary, with 8 days on the...

I mashed at 154F, but i like my beers on the drier side lately.

So I bottled this last night after a total of 22 days in the primary of which 11 days was on a dry hop. I tweaked the recipe very slightly to suit my system but it should be very close to the original. One thing i did was mash at 154F for a total of 75 minutes where I got a positive iodine...

Do a split mash. Msh in with half the grain at your temperature. Wait your mashtime and remove the grains. Mash in the other half of the grains and sparge your original in the meantime. After the second mashtime you can sparge that bag. Adds an hour but makes the process much easier and I found...

So i was planning to brew this for the longest time and finally did so last night. Came up slightly short on my efficiency, but got 5.5 Gal of wort into my fermenter at a gravity of 1.081. So all in all I am happy with it. expecting a large loss at transfer to secondary as my wort was highly...

The only potential flaw I can see in your process is the waiting time after transferring to your bottling bucket. I always try and minimize the exposure time of my brew to air and thus potential organisms. Next time, if you do not keg all your brew in future, sanitize your bottling bucket...

I wrap my kettle in a large blanket doubled up straight after turning off the heat and mashing in. I only suffer from a couple of degrees temperature loss during a 60 minute mash. A little more so for a 90 minute mash. It isn't pretty but works like a charm!

Tried a bottle after 3 and a half weeks to check for carbonation. It is not carbing well. There was a hint of "fizzy" when i swished it in my mouth but that is about all. I will let it sit for one more month and try it again. If it does not improve I will add more yeast and see.

Bottled this yesterday. FG 1018. That gives me an ABV just shy of 12%. Sample tasted decent for a beer so young. Good malt flavour, slight lingering bitterness. The alcohol tastes "hot" as anything but I am sure it will improve with time. All in all I am satisfied thus far.