Recent content by Alvin

A brew buddy called me last weekend asking if I had a belgian yeast. I told him that I had a Wyeast 1214 but the date on it was May 2001. I smacked the pack and after three days it began to swell. After another 24 hours it was fully expanded and I made a starter this morning. This is not the...

Before you buy anything check out the Kings Kooker 280. Dual rings, high (55,000 BTU) to low for almost any situation and it burns clean, no soot on your stock pot.

I grind 250 grams / 1/2 lb. pale malt and place it in a 1+ liter /quart stainless steel thermos bottle. Pour in 0.6 litres / 0.6 quart hot water @ 165 - 170 deg. F and stir thoroughly. Mash should end up at 150 deg. F. After one hour strain mash through a basket coffee filter and sterilize by...

Malto dextrine does contain unfermentables but I would be cautious assuming that it is 100% unfermentables. I suggest adding it to the secondary and give it a week to settle down before bottling.

For information on Wit beer check out: http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/styles/2_4style.html

I had a very similar experience with the 3068 yeast. It is a low flocculating gooey slimy yeast. I switched to 3056 for my weizens and it makes a very good dunkelweizen also.

FG is determined by the fermentability of the wort. Try mashing at 145 deg. F and extend the mashing time to 90 - 120 minutes. I have achieved FG's of as low as 1.002 in the secondary fermentation making a Kolschy Brew using this technique. Two enzymes are responsible for most of the...

When the fermentation is nearing completion and the yeast is running out of fermentables, the yeast will consume the butterscotch like fermentation by-products if the temperature is raised to 55 - 60 deg. F. Gently changing the temperature up and down before and after the rest is completed...

FG is determined by the fermentability of the wort. Try mashing at 145 deg. F and extend the mashing time to 90 - 120 minutes. I have achieved FG's of as low as 1.002 in the secondary fermentation making a Kolschy Brew using this technique. Two enzymes are responsible for most of the...

Shallower mash beds would definitely be more prone to channeling. Temperature variations with shallower mash beds would be more of a problem but mashing temperature plays a major role in the time required to complete conversion. A mash at 150 deg. F takes much longer than a mash at 160 deg...

Steve973 - What batch volume are you brewing? By my mash calculations you could get a maximum gravity of 1.097 from 14 lbs of Pilsener malt in a 19 litre / 5 U S Gal batch. 1.084 /1.097 is about 86% by my calculations. I assume that you are fly sparging; how fast are you sparging and how much...