Recent content by TristanL

Nice work! You should have plenty of happy yeast fermenting away shortly! Like I said, I love the Saflager w34/70. Not to get off topic, I know a lot of people have eschewed using dry yeast, but I've scored 38s and 40s in competition using this strain on German Pils and Vienna lagers. If...

Sure! When the yeast first rehydrate they can't control what comes into the cell walls. When wort rushes in it ends up rupturing a lot of the cells. When you rehydrate with preboiled warm water it allows the yeast to rehydrate without the danger of harmful substances entering the cell...

Pitching warm will produce more esters and byproducts than pitching cold. No matter what you decided, always rehydrate the yeast, no matter what the dry yeast manufacturer says! Half the yeast will die without it and you need every cell you can get! If you're pitching one packet, you probably...

Just brewed this today. Tasted the hydrometer sample, wow, holy smoke/bitter batman. I've never tasted a beer like this and this beer will either be hero or zero! Not sure if I overdid the smoke component. I'll report back with notes on the finished beer! Kind of wish I would have done a 5...

I recently smoked 3.25 lb of German Wheat Malt with white oak in the charcoal smoker for 2 hours. All I had around were metal colanders, so I smoked the malt a bit longer to expose it all. It smells great and has a lightly smokey taste with a tart acidic snap when chewed. Did you shoot for...

The heating pad I use is 50 watts and I plug it into a Johnson A419 controller. I'd say that this would give you more heat than a light bulb for the amount of energy used. Another good option is to go on Ebay and find a used waterbed heater. They usually come with a thermostat. You may be...

11 gallons of schwartzbier = 629

I use a heating pad, one without the auto-shut off safety feature. It works great!

The bar looks fantastic! This is the motivation that I need to finish the rest of my basement! Can't wait to see updated pictures!

That's gorgeous! Great job!

+1 ,...... only 200 if uncle sam asks :D

That's awesome!

If you add the gelatin when the beer is cold in 48 hours it should be clear!

Like others have stated I'd just take a small amount of the slurry from your medium gravity stout (100ML or so) and make a 500ML starter, cool it and pitch the yeast. There isn't any need to "wash" or "rinse" the slurry after 2 pitches. When the yeast is at the height of activity pitch it into...

Besides the savings harvesting yeast is very useful for brewing big lager beers. It's difficult to make a big enough starter to ferment a 1.080 dopplebock. It's easier to start out with a small lager beer and then repitch that yeast into a big lager beer; as opposed to making a 3 gallon...