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Sounds like it could turn out like a Abita style beer but they are lightly hoped.

Over carbed. And all beer has a "yeast infection" we add it on purpose to make alcohol. If it tastes fine it's probably not infected with unwanted bacteria.

It seems to me that pin locks are cheaper and easier to find. If I didn't already have ball locks I would switch. Also my advice is to do set it and forget it method of carbing instead of shaking or setting at higher pressure for a day. I got much better results once I stopped being in such a...

I have one of those cheap dome perforated false bottoms meant for a cooler that I have drilled out to accept 1/2 inch fittings. A better mash tun is on the wish list but it works for now with some rice hulls. BTW thanks Kal for the great online resource. I followed your ideas for mounting...

I have to use a half pound of hulls otherwise the grains get so compacted from recirculating I don't get enough flow through the false bottom.

Good to hear that someone else has to use rice hulls and not just me. I modeled mine after Kal, just need another pump and it will be completed. Right now I have to put the boiler on the ground but it works.

My milk stouts always stabilize around 1.020. There are a lot of unfermentable sugars in there and I don't think you will ever get down to 1.010. Leave it alone at this point and check it again on day 14. Extracts are notorious for finishing high anyway.

Darker beers like porters can benefit from some extra time in the fermenter but that depends on your own tastes. If it's stable bottle it and save some to taste a couple months down the road to see if you like it better younger or older. My stouts are much better with a month in fermenter and...

Star San is a must in my brew cave but I use vodka in my airlocks. If you are going to bottle make sure it is done fermenting before with a hydrometer to avoid bottle bombs. I like my wits young so I keg after two weeks and start drinking once it's carbed. Also remember it's supposed to be hazy...

While good sanitation is paramount in making great beer I have found that as long as you pitch a large healthy yeast colony little oops moments don't always end in tragedy. I think we all have had a blonde moment and thought "crap I just ruined this batch" but it all works out in the end.

I don't see any meaningful benefits. In fact once it's cool you want to get it to your sanitized fermenter before any bugs can get to it. The trub material will not effect flavor for 90% of the beers you can make. The only difference would be barley wines or others that will be aged for a long...

Yes that's what I meant, thanks for the spelling help. I would misspell nearly every word if it wasn't for auto correct and it doesn't have french in its dictionary.

Only thing I can think of is maybe a souie fie setup? Some more information would be great from the original poster.

That my friend is a thing of beauty, congrats and happy brewing!

The pid wattage rating has nothing to do with the wattage of your heating element. The output of the pid simply tells the ssr to turn on or off. Now the ssr needs to be rated for your element but there is no way your element is only pulling 2a. A 2000w 120v element will pull a little less than...

+1 I've done it both ways and don't see any benefit to stressing about the trub. Chill it and pour directly into fermenter leaving behind last half gallon or so. Sometimes simplicity is the best option.

+1 I always have a stout on tap and always carb and serve with only CO2. Always comes out great. Remember there are hundreds of commercially made stouts but only a handful use nitrogen. Doesn't make them any better in my opinion.

Professional brewers do a lot of things to squeeze every bit out of their grains that don't make much of a difference at our level. But when you're talking about tons of grains and hundreds of gallons of wort every bit helps to save money. Main thing is to find a process that works best for you.

Main problem I had sizing a pot wasn't the resistance but the required current. My ssvr was rated at 2w but most pots are only .25w. Kept burning them until I figured that out.

I accidentally bought a 240v coil contactor instead of 120v but no big deal. Just jumped one leg of input to one side of coil and interrupt other leg with switch. Works like a charm. I would recommend landing neutral to a terminal bar for ease of future options of adding lights ,alarms, pids and...