Recent content by bglass77

For this beer I did a 2L starter made with Swanson L.Plantarum Probiotics. No off flavors or smells in the starter. Mash/Sparge as usual, then boiled for 15 minutes. Cooled the Wort to 95F and adjusted the pH to 4.5. Pitched the 2L L.Plantarum starter and held temp for 20 hours, which brought...

I recently built a HERMS coil out of 50' of 3/8ths copper tubing. In an effort to clean and sanitize the coil, I ran a loop of Starsan through it overnight. In the morning I took a look and the Starsan solution was green/blue in color. Some google searching seems to indicate that this is/was...

I"m measuring the beer temp with a thermowell. I'll check that the probe is still all the way down the thermowell. Yesterday I set the temp to be 70F and it locked right back into perfect control. It seems that when I ask the BrewPi to go above 70F, it starts losing control.

My first fermentation with my BrewPi controller resulted in near perfect temp control, within .1F. This second fermentation seems to be going quite differently, allowing for sways of up to .8. I know this isn't going to break the beer, I'm just trying to understand why it seems to not have as...

I was recently gifted a RO/DI water filter. I have a couple of questions about it: 1. I've heard that it's better to bypass the DI section. Is that true? 2. My current water in Vancouver BC is already pretty good: Calcium = 2.4ppm Magnesium = 0.3ppm Sodium = 0.9ppm Sulfate =...

I'm just about to bottle my scotch ale, after a month in primary. I was planning on doing my usual 3 weeks at 70F to carb, but then what? Should I age the bottles at room temp? I've also been reading that I should be aging them cooler than a standard ale. What's your experiences with...

My beer fridge has a temperature controller on it, which I use to keep my bottled homebrew at 50f. I've used this temperature to mimic the low end of cellaring temps, as well as to have the beer pour in a glass at roughly 53f (given the ambient temp of the glasses in the cupboard, room temp...

1. The salt additions for the mash...Should I be putting that in the mash water, heating that water, then mashing my grains with that water? Or can I just toss the salts in with my grains as I pour the heated mash water into my tun? 2. Sparge Water..same question as above. Throw them into...

How does one adjust the water chemistry when adding the dark malts at the end of the mash? Should I adjust my water for a lighter beer or treat it as if the dark malts were in the mash the whole time? My initial thought is that it's the pH of the conversion that counts, so I should adjust my...

I'm reading through everything now..yes it's a little more complicated. Any chance you could run the numbers on my water/recipe and see what it comes up with? I find I can understand things better when I can work backwards from the answer anyways..No rush..when you have time. Thank-you!

Numbers are correct. That's BC water for ya...

Downloading Bru'n Water now. Thanks for the recommendation.

I've ditched the Epsom Salts, Baking Soda, and Lactic Acid. The estimated room-temp mash pH is 5.46. Ion levels for the water profile now look pretty good, with the exception of Sodium, which is reportedly 1ppm. This is still within the recommended ranges, but I've read in many places that...

Thanks for the quick reply. Leaving out the baking soda and the epsom salts leaves me low on Magnesium and Sulfates (according to the spreadsheet). The baking soda and epsom salts were added in an effort to bring the Mg and SO4 levels to something appropriate for a porter. The baking soda...

Here is the water report from my city (Mission, B.C. Canada) Calcium - 1.44ppm Magnesium - 0.18ppm Sodium - 0.758ppm Chloride - 0.84ppm Sulfate - 0.76ppm Alkalinity CaCO3 - 4.09ppm I've been using the EZ Water Calculator Spreadsheet 3.0 for my adjustments. My concern is the amount of...