Recent content by YeasternStar

I, too, love Dos Equis Amber...but only draft. I always order the largest mug they have when I eat Mexican food and really enjoy the taste. I have never noticed a metallic taste from the draft version, but the few times I have tried the bottled version I haven't loved it so much, as it does seem...

I've been doing a little thinking and reading of late and have come to the conclusion that in order to do BIAB with a propane fired keggle I will need to be able to lift the bag up off the bottom every time I light the burner. I have a pulley system, just no ready place to rig it up at the...

I was looking at bucket heaters on Amazon just this morning. I found one really nice one that is circular and sits flat on the bottom of a bucket, but...one big issue: it has a non-adjustable thermostat and only heats to 110F. Some of the others I looked at specify they cannot be used in metal...

Yeah, this brewing hobby has taken a lot of twists and turns over the years and it probably isn't done yet. Looking back twenty years ago brewers were modifying plastic picnic coolers to make their own mash tuns and dreaming about a three vessel system made from Sanke kegs. Back then the Sabco...

I hadn't thought of that. That sounds like a real possibility! My setup is a Sabco BrewMagic which has a burner under each kettle and a pump that can be routed from HLT to Mash Tun or else routed to recirculate the Mash liquor. As much work as it is cleaning up, I'd still hate to abandon this...

I ended up here after doing a web search on BIAB techniques. I have a 3-vessel RIMS with propane main heat and an electric heater in my recirculation system. Pulling a keggle with wet mash off the top of the frame is getting harder every year (even for 5 gallons); so, I'm thinking of changing my...

Today's malts certainly make a difference. The Sabco I have uses a gas burner under the kettle for its main heat and it takes some time to raise the temp up. The recirc heat is only a small exchanger made to maintain set-point, so it really doesn't help in that regard. I'm thinking of converting...

I I agree. The BrewMagic is only sort of automated, with the main heat being all manually operated. Their excuse for that is "a brewer should be involved hands-on". I'd say moving that 15-gallon keg full of soaked mash off the top of the rack and cleaning it out constitutes hands-on, but I...

Yeah, the only place I have seen it so far is in the Sabco manual. Considering how long it takes the BrewMagic to get from 75-80 degrees up to 150 degrees or so, it might actually be providing a rest at room temp. It hasn't caused any problems, but I'm sure it affects the wort in some way.

My system is a Sabco BrewMagic with three kettles, a recirculation pump and electric heat exchanger. It is capable of doing step mashes, but Sabco recommends starting every mash, whether step or single, at room temperature. I'm sure they have a reason for that, but nowhere in the manual can it...

After a five or six year hiatus from brewing I am getting ready to put my Brew-Magic back to work again. The good folks at Sabco recommend mixing the grain and water at room temperature rather than using hot strike water, and that is how I have always done it until now. After reading a number of...

This sounds like a recipe I would like to brew. I once brewed an extract red ale that turned out pretty good, but this one sounds much better! I really liked the red color and the malt profile, but the one I brewed used Cascade hops and they were a bit overpowering for an Irish ale. I'm not a...

I've been off of here for a long time and have made some tweaks to AutoBrew during that time. I would like to make the source code available free, but I'm not sure of the best way to do this. I could put it on GitHub and hope to get some folks interested in modifying and improving it, but how...

I'm in, too!

Great system. I would love to add this to my stable of equipment now that AutoBrew handles fermentation, but the time is not right for this level of expenditure.