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Hi, thanks for the advice everyone! What I should have mentioned is that my kegerator is a work in progress, I don't actually have a tower/taps yet. I've been using the black hand held faucets. I'll try and work out a cover for them, that's a good idea. I haven't noticed this on a first...

Hi, I've held off asking for help on this for as long as I can, frankly because it is disgusting. But I'm losing at least 50% of my beer to this, and can't take it any more. I get fly larvae in my beer, and I don't know how it keeps happening. I brew all grain, 5 gallon batches. I use glass...

I've been running using the newer Lowe's model of this fridge for my kegs, for a little over a year. No tower or faucets yet, but I did have to cut out most of the ridges in the door just so squeezing the kegs in isn't such a pain. I use an external thermostat and controller, with the internal...

Hi, I keg and carbonate with CO2, set it to serving pressure for a week etc. I brewed my first ordinary bitter, and when looking up what pressure to use on the CO2, to my surprise the answer was 0. According to both charts and the tastybrew.com calculator. So.. ok, basically at about 1 volume...

There are different accessories you can get for the BB, racking adapters etc, but basically you just need a different bung as mentioned before.

Interesting discussion, and it explains something I've always wondered about - the bottled Erdinger Hefe-Weizen is significantly different from the "same" beer drunk from a keg in Bavaria. Bottle yeast explains it. Thanks!

So much has been covered. Probably obvious but - keep old towels around when transferring, racking etc, underneath wherever you are moving the beer to. Makes it easier to clean up! Also, +1 on the advice about water, softened water near ruined my first 4 batches before I caught on.

Odd, I can get a large pitcher of Dead Guy for $8 at my local bar. What irritates me is $14 for a 4 pack of dogfish head 90 minute IPA. I love their beer but dang. Anyway, my 2c is that pricing is an art and science, having more to do with perceived value than cost of production. Someone with...

I did a 6.5 gallon boil, which left me with just about 5 by the time I was done - no topping off. This is why I was puzzled. It is a new hydrometer, perhaps it is off. Thanks for the advice everyone! Rob

Hello, I've just brewed an english pub ale (extract) from the recipe section. The recipe showed it should have about 1.035 - 1.040 OG, mine came out as 1.028. I did a full boil, but I did convert from LME to DME. It called for 3.3 lbs of LME and 1 lb of DME, I used 3 lbs 10.2 oz of DME...

I consistently had a metallic taste to my homebrews that didn't fade over time, until I switched from tap water to bottled water. I have not had an issue since then. My tap water runs through a water softener, not sure if that has anything to do with it but it was most likely something in the...

If you do go with a bigger kettle for a full boil, my 2c is to go with at least 10 gal capacity. My LHBS convinced me 8 gal would be fine, and it really isn't, it takes painful micromanagement of the hot break.

Hi, about 2 days into fermentation (though with no bubbles etc) my ESB started developing what looks to be mold. The pic linked to from below is from day 4. I read that mold can simply be skimmed off, though I'm not sure how to do that in a carboy, maybe a collapsible fishnet type thing. In...

ok, thanks for the explanations on suckback, I hadn't known about that before. Thanks! Rob

Hi, I have a fermenter in a temp controlled freezer at 65F, on day 3. Each day the water level in the air lock has dropped from the max fill line almost to the bottom, I refill it at night. I'm on I guess my 11th batch of beer, and have not seen this before. Any thoughts on what could be...

I use a straining bag to hold the hops (pellets) in a secondary, after a couple tries without one I find it easier. Straining it during the transfer to a keg or bottling bucket just never worked well for me. I either left too much hop matter in the beer, or oxidized it when the straining bag...

Thank you all for the info, sounds like what I did was fine and there are several other options for cooling as well.

Hi, I just switched to doing a full boil outside, and found a new problem that I'm not sure I'm solving correctly. Yesterday it was roughly 100F outside where I brewed, and with my wort chiller I could only get the wort down to about 90F, I think my tap water just isn't cold enough. Even that...

I use an auto siphon, and I've seen this happen when either the inside / plunger doesn't have a good seal (seems to happen more when it is wet before I get the flow going), or if there is something blocking the intake section, such as being clogged with yeast etc.

Hi, I'm all set to transfer my beer into a keg for the first time, planned to use the corn sugar to carbonate for a few weeks. While re-reading my various info on it I see it mentioned that it is good to purge the oxygen at the top of the keg with CO2, unfortunately I can't fill my CO2 tank...