Recent content by animuL

I've been brewing beer for years but just recently tried my hand at wine-making. I bought a kit from a local supply place and made a tasty cab sauv. I've got some friends getting married in October and I thought, how fun would that be to run a batch for their wedding as a gift to them and 20-30...

The time lapse idea is cool. I can do right at 1 week with my GoPro so I might have to try that next time for fun but it sounds like my mistake has been following the bubbles and not the sg. I hope I didn't screw up my latest batch because it sat in the primary for about 4 days then went into...

Thanks for the replies. I didn't even think about the SG readings and what I had in mind is WAY more complicated. I was thinking about affixing a sensor to the airlock that detects the bubbles. It would either have a timer that resets every time a bubble is detected or would count the bubbles...

I'm curious what people do to know when fermentation is complete. I think most commonly I see "after no "burps" of the airlock have occurred in 48 hrs the process is done" but short of sitting there and watching it how do you know?

Another question I have about my water is that its pretty high in chlorine (~2.0 ppm) so I filled 1 gallon jugs with it and set it out to allow the chlorine to gas off. Its taking longer than I expected, about 3 days now and there still is more than I am comfortable with. Is there a better way...

Thanks guys. I used my hot tub kit to check the pH which uses chemicals that turn the water yellow which I then compare to a chart. Since the mash isn't clear it won't work. I guess I need to get something to test the mash.

I tested the pH of my local tap water and found it to be very basic, about 8.2 pH. I'm brewing some wheat beer and was wondering if it would work to add some fresh lemon juice to the water (prior to mash) to get the pH closer to an ideal level. Also, I read that a mash pH of around 5.2-5.4 is...