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I've been making a peach cider from the Kirkland White Cranberry Peach juice blend at Costco. I gotta tell ya, it rocks. Here's the recipe: 5 or 6 gallons of Kirkland White Cranberry Peach juice blend from Costco Montrachet wine yeast Just pour the juice into a 6.5 gallon carboy, pitch...

Definitely start early and brew on the side of your house that is shaded through the early part of the day. I'm in ATX too and that's what I do.

I placed an order over 10 days ago but it hasn't shipped yet. Tried emailing a couple of times to get an ETA but no response. Tried calling the number listed on the my order response email but got an error message saying that the voicemail box was full and couldn't accept any new messages...

Can you post a pic of the brackets that you used to mount the tray, please? Thanks.......

This is what I've been using: http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_04616702000P?vName=Appliances&cName=Freezers+%26+Ice+Makers&sName=Chest

When I used to do a partial mash, I would pre-heat the oven to its lowest setting. Do my strike on the counter top. Put the lid on the pot and put it in the oven. Then, turn the oven off. The mash would stay spot on exactly the same temp that it was at when I put it in the oven for the the...

That's exactly what I did. Got a couple of throw away dryers off of craigslist, gutted the motors and used one to motorize my malt mill. At least in my case, yes the motors were 110V not 220V. Most of the info that I used to figure out what to do about a mill sheave and a motor sheave I found...

I'm not yet convinced. I read at How Stuff Works that the old way that dimmers worked was with a variable resistor but the modern dimmers use a triac to vary the on-off time (duty cycle). Check out the article here: HowStuffWorks "How Dimmer Switches Work" Additionally, I've found a slew...

I've been thinking about doing this for a long time as well. I've always wondered why a simple ordinary light dimmer switch couldn't be used to control an SSR which in turn controls the heater element? At the end of the day, if you use the SSR then don't you just need a simple way to control...

So I made a 1 gallon batch of JAO. I changed the recipe just a little in that I used Lalvin EC-1118 because I wanted to end up with a dry or nearly dry mead. I started at an OG of 1.067 and fermented down to 1.026 over about 5 months. I racked then to a secondary and topped up with a mix of...

Actually I did get to the bottom of this yesterday. Turns out that the 3 leads are the start of the starter coil, the start of the running coil and the tied together other ends of both. I read in an industrial electronics textbook that the starter coil usually has many more turns and a...

Yeah, I thought of that too but there isn't a simple circuit that stops and starts the motor in the dryer. There is an interlock switch for the door, an over temperature fuse/breaker, the timer and an interlock switch that senses whether or not the belt is present. However, all of this...

So, I've read Mike Dixon's account of motorizing his and got inspired - http://hbd.org/carboy/motorizing_a_malt_mill.htm. I went to CL today and scored a couple free dryers. I gutted'em for the motors and they are definitely 115VAC units. Neither has their running rpms on the the labels but...

Yeah, this one didn't draw much response. I have sorta resolved to just rack the batch until it doesn't cast anymore lees and then keg it. Then, I'm gonna force carb in the keg inside of my chest freezer and try to push it somewhat past the spec level of carbonation. From there, I'll bottle...

Any champagne/sparkling wine makers in here? I've been kicking around the idea of a homebrew champagne for a while now. Initially, I had been looking at the traditional method of carb'ing in the bottles and then riddling. However, I just purchased a small chest freezer and already have a CO2...

Its been in the carboy for 3 months now and it just won't clear. If the currently cooler weather around Austin doesn't make it finally clear, I wonder if I should try some kind of fining agent? I read some other posts in this thread about the subject but the consensus seems to be against...

Well, I guess I'm hosed on this one. It was definitely sorbate in the stabilizer pack. Thanks for letting me know.

We did our first wine kit recently. Because it was the first we wanted to do something easy and cheap so we selected an Island Mist kit - Strawberry White Merlot. It is all finished and in the bottles now. The wine is waaay too sweet. If I had known that it would turn out this sweet and...

With my beer, I use Star San and it lasts for a very long time before I replace it. I was just wondering if anybody knows how long a batch of k-meta will keep in a covered bucket? Right now it is about 6 weeks old and has a very strong smell when the lid is taken off. Thanks, Don

Yeah, I guess it really isn't much of a risk and, really, it tastes fine. Gonna give this a whirl and let everyone know how it worked out. I'll get some collaborative tasters to bear me out if I decide to claim that it doesn't suck. Stay tuned.........