Recent content by Anglecard48

Thank you very much. All very informative and helpful. I brew 2.5 gallon extract / specialty brews (in other words cut standard, five-gallon recipes in half). And I'm trying to economize on the steps. I'm a retired guy in my dotage, my the end of the brew session, I'm gassed. The Brew in Bag...

Thanks huckdavidson, Yes, I would have made sure to have the source steeping water at something like 6.0 pH (in that neighborhood) for the steeping and would check the pH of the water/grain mix to make sure it's in the neighborhood of 5.6 pH. In that case, I don't understand why the volume of...

They say steeping specialty grains with too much water — experts recommend no more than 2 quarts of water per pound of grain — can release excess tannins. The thinking seems to be that: 1) specialty grains are slightly acidic. 2) the steeping solution should be below 6.0 pH 3) if a large amount...

I made a dipstick a couple days ago as I got into this topic with all of you. I got a stainless steel rule to use as my dip stick and filled my boiling kettle with 400 ounces and measured the height of it when cool and when hot (hot means 150 degrees up to 208 degrees). I did the same with 496...

It's funny isn't it? The detail. I'm glad you brought up the difference hot temperature makes to the measurement of the volume of the wort. And then the fluid that crawls up the hydrometer -- the miniscus. I was hoping there was a technical term to describe that. God laughs at homebrewers...

Thanks to all of you. It has become clearer to me now. I boiled an Amber Ale yesterday and hit the OG and hit the expected post-boil wort volume just about right on the nose. As you all said, it is important to pay close attention to what is in the kit or in the recipe. One thing that I really...

I'm a little confused about when to take OG reading in an extract brew. I do a 2.5 gallon brew and do a full boil — about 3 gallons is in the brewpot at end of boil and about 2.6 gallons after being cooled goes into fermenter. I know OG is to be taken at the end of the boil. But is it best...

Huge thanks to all of you for your comments. I need to do some book learning on specific gravity, how to measure it, how to interpret the measures, and how to make sure it's within margin of error. I could not figure out the Sean Terrill or the Brewer's Friend calculators. I didn't know there...

Hello. I just signed up at HomeBrewTalk. This is my first post. If I'm not in the correct forum, I apologize. I have an Amber Ale in secondary with target FG 1.013 according to the recipe (American Amber Ale, Zainasheff and Palmer). After four weeks in the fermenter, I have a FG reading of...