Recent content by Vertigo00oo

It's sold. I forgot I posted it here, I apologize for not keeping the thread up to date.

I have a Spike CF10 with a bunch of accessories for sale. It's in excellent condition, I just want to go with something bigger. This equipment listed allows you to ferment and carbonate your beer in one vessel, and also clean effort free with a CIP ball (you provide the pump). You must buy at...

Brewed a Belgian Dubbel yesterday and as noted earlier, performed a 90 minute mash. I then sparged with 180F water for about 15, mixed everything up real well, and got the 78% efficiency I got batch before last! So, in my case, it seems as though the batch before last when I saw the jump, I...

So on my batch this past weekend, I did everything I normally do except I fully drained the mash tun instead of stopping when it starts gurgling. No change in efficiency. Still at 68%. Next batch I'm going to mash for 90 minutes and see where that puts me.

Which meter do you have?

Makes sense. I usually stop draining when I start to see a sudden rush of grain/husk material. Since I had a strainer, I just let it all come on out this time. What do others do? Do any of you have the same issue with the rush of stuff at the end of the draining?

I've read the same as well. I read that the strips typically read .3 lower where in my case it seemed to be .3 higher. I did cool the samples to room temperature before taking a sample. Perhaps these particular strips (from my LHBS) are +-.2 or +- .3, which might explain things.

Thanks everyone for their response. Yes, it was purely to add more pH buffering with what I had on hand. Nice observation. I'll try that next time and see what happens I thought of this as well. However I got my grains crushed by the same LHBS and I don't think they've adjusted their...

**SOLVED** See thread for details. I brewed an oatmeal stout last weekend. It's my third all grain brew and my first two landed an efficiency of about 68%. Since this is my first 20+ SRM beer, I did some reading that the darker crystal grains can lower the mash pH below 5.5 target. I got my...

Ha! Mine ended up with 1.055. It was my first all grain and recorded a 68% efficiency. Beersmith had my starting efficiency at something around 75 or 80%. Either way, the 1.055 is within the style guidelines so it should turn out fine.

I have the same issues here, however I entered the recipe into ProMash and got 1.078. How in the world are some of these people hitting an OG of under 1.060? How did your OG turn out?