Recent content by BigdogMark

Thanks for the replies and guidance. The porter has been fermenting for 9 days now. This same porter recipe using WLP002 as the yeast fermented out to 1.020 measured with a hygrometer in the past. I use a refractometer on brew day, and a hygrometer for post fermentation readings. I am pretty...

I forgot to add I set up the water profile from RO to Black Full in Brewsmith. The mash had a ph of 5.29 at 30 minutes.

I've got a porter I fermemented with the Lallemand London ESB yeast with an OG of 1.061 that has stopped at 1.036. The ferment was quick at 65 degrees with two other brews using Nottingham. They both finished at 1.012 as expected. The recipe was 8# Pale Malt 2# Munich Malt 1.5# Crystal 20 1.5#...

I have a regulator that appears identical except for the bottle connector. Mine has a yoke that goes around the post of a medical oxygen cylinder. If you search for medical oxygen regulator on ebay you will see examples, as well as other regulators, some with flow meters attached. I got mine...

Facts can't be communicated if they are unknown, unless of course this is a network news channel or three where they make them up as they go along. The "fact" of the breach was made public. After that it takes time to figure out the facts of what happened. Now the rest of the facts are out...

I'm going to assume those that are claiming they were affected by this issue did not choose to save a credit card in their Midwest account. My account has no cards saved. If you did, you chose to bypass the PCI requirements for the sake of convenience. Convenience breeds failure. However, as...

What are you using for sanitizer? How are you cooling your wort? No accusations in the question, just wanting a clearer picture. You mentioned something about forced wort sample. What do you mean? I've experienced infections a number of times in my kegged beer so not sure what you might be...

So the implied concern is with such a large growth rate, there is a higher probability the starter will become infected? I will have to consider that with my sanitation procedures.

I've been propagating yeast for myself and my brew buds, primarily WLP-001 California Ale and WLP-530 Abbey Ale. I started with 1 liter starters, going through the step-up process to get multiple jars containing our typical requirement of 200 billion cells. This typically works out to about 75ml...

It tested as 8.5% ABV, and 23.3 IBU per Brewsmith. That is on the low end of the scale for Golden Strong Belgians.

I have a Golden Strong Belgian that just came out of the fermentor. The FG is 1.006 according to two hydrometers and my new refractometer (corrections applied). The OG was 1.072. I tasted the sample used for the testing and it is good, with a pleasant fruity taste. But strangely, the...

I washed five yeast pitches this past Saturday before throwing into fermentors. I was using half-pint jars, and each had 100 ml of densely packed yeast plus water to the top. I put one crushed tablet in each jar. All five batches showed evidence of fermentation after 12 hours and very active...

I have a new refractometer I have been using for a while with favorable results, particularly when comparing to hydrometer readings. But I took a reading this afternoon that was unlike all others and I was wondering why. I have a Golden Strong Belgian that I started last Sunday. It came in low...

I use Bru'nWater and get good result from it, but yes you do need to know the ph of your water. A swimming pool test kit will get you close and make sure you don't have a big issue. If you don't input a valid ph, you could be putting in too much acid. I have tested the ph in the mash on a few...

My brewbud and I have run into this issue a couple of times and resolved it by putting the late hops in a separate bag, tie it off at the top and toss it in the boil. It seems our 5 gal bag on the hop spider gets dicey above six (6) ounces. At a recent Big Brew with more friends, we watched...