Recent content by AerationStation

Well yea, I wouldn't let him get away with that. I was very specific on my "prescription" and he came through (although his wife wouldn't let him join me haha)

So I pulled my back lifting a couch up three floors while moving my friend in to his new place. I can barely walk so I've gotten a 6 pack of brown shugga and a bomber of Arrogant Bastard, plopped myself down on the couch, and I'm ready to watch some Thursday Night Football and maybe some hockey...

Bleach kills but because its alkaline ( rather than acidic) it takes a longer contact time. In my lab we assume sanitation after 10min ( starsan is like 3min)

1) I wouldn't suggest ingesting PBW, don't put it in your beer 2) A couple of ounces of Star San is no big deal for a 5 gallon batch. The acid breaks down in to phosphates in the wort, which will actually help the yeast along (there's a Brew Strong episode about sanitizing on the Brewing...

Ive drunk half of a 5 gal mead that was sitting in secondary (1 month old) because I ran out of HB...over the course of five days

I like using wine coolers for my ferm chambers. You can usually find them without a compressor hump which I love. There are a couple of cheap Avanti options out there, their 28 bottle one fits a bucket or 6gal carboy perfect. Alot of them have digital controllers for the cooler on the outside of...

Boil a cup of water, cool it a little down to like 180F, then toss in as many marshmellows as will dissolve. Ive done it with jolly ranchers in a wheat beer...to badddd effect. But I think that had more to do with jolly ranchers than the method. They dissolved well, just didnt taste great

I usually find the banana esters going nuts over 66, i usually ferment @ 62 for better flavor balance between clove and banana

SIDEBAR: From what i recall the iodine test to check for starch conversion to sugar can be a little misleading. The reason it comes out positive is that the iodine gets trapped in a helix (at least I think its a helix, could be some other structure) created by polymerized amylose and...

It does also depend on the yeast strain. I've noticed my weizen yeast are crapped out after a month

I use EZ personally, but all the software calculates the acidic contribution of kilned malts slightly different so any numbers they come out with are only estimates

I'm assuming you're missing a 0 here, 110 is right in the middle for Ca so that's good. Mg2+ levels being low could have an impact on the health of the yeast over the course of several generations but personally I don't worry about it. Make sure you're in the right estimated pH range in your...

Id probably kick it up to 75-80F, it's high but most of the flavor compounds have already bed produced at this point so you'll have a little leeway with hot flavors. Definitely rouse as well, try to get those suckers back up in to solution. Adding a little nutrient like you mentioned is a...

You'll wanna up the Ca to 50ppm minimum, which means adding CaSO4 or CaCl2. Id suggest a mixture of them to avoid pushing your sulfate/chloride ratio to far in one direction. Too much sulfate will give a harsh bitterness and too much chloride can tend to give a sort of rounded "flabby" flavor...

Do you have a pre boil SG for the batch? You can figure out your efficiency just to make sure you didn't get good extraction. Also, did the ferm temp take a dip early on in fermentation (first week or so)? Could be the yeast fell asleep to protect themselves, you could try rousing the yeast...