Recent content by zdegner

The results came back negative, my friend didn't detect any copper left in the wort sample. Quite possibly the yeast ate whatever was available by the time the test was done. (We don't have much copper in our water here and there are no copper pipes in the house.) We fully intend to consume this...

I'm sure he will be sampling this beer. Chemists always seem to be a lot less worried about these sort of things than everyone else, probably for good reason =) I'll be sure to post the numbers when they come back, just in case anyone runs into a similar problem. Also, for the record, I...

I built an absolutely bare bones, no frills version of Kal's controller design. The parts from Auber rang in around $214 (plus international shipping). By bare bones I mean if you want to turn off the heater, you're unplugging the element from the controller =) The rest of the electronic parts...

That pot size will work, but look out for boil overs or your cleanup work will double! You'll probably be pretty close to the lip (0.5 gallons of airspace doesn't look like much once the pot is filled with 6 gallons of wort) but I've done it many times without incident. I'd suggest measuring or...

Yes, the water in our area has an alkalinity between 73 and 83, according to the latest water report (link). Thanks for the heads up about the FDA regulation. I looked it up and there is actually a note specific to beer brewing under the copper section (link): The copper risk in beer...

This past weekend I brewed a pilsner and tried something slightly different this time. I used 1 ml of 98% sulfuric acid in 40 L of sparge water to drop the pH to 6.0 (used Bru'n Water for the calculation). Normally I do not treat my water, other than adding half a campden tablet. In my...