Recent content by billsea

"Experiment till the cows come home if you like, but you will find water will cool much faster than a mash w grain...water only is not a valid experiment, water behaves much differently than a mash and will show a much greater temp loss... play if you want but realize you are only playing and...

Experiment. Fill your pot with just water. Heat it to 153. Cover it as you intend to and then measure the temp/time as it cools. Do it again if you want to make a change. When brew day comes you will have confidence. But, like others have said if you cover it properly it will not loose that...

Thanks guys!. Great info. Just what I wanted to know. One last question. Is clarification necessary for flavor or is it just cosmetic?

I am making a Fontana wine kit. Pinot Noir. On day 8 the gravity was .992 so I racked, added campden, and oak. On day 30 I racked again, added more campden and removed the oak. It is now 3 months later and I have done nothing. Just let it sit with an airlock. I got a little confused about...

I hate to disagree with B Smith. Learned so much from him. I usually wait until the gravity is about 1.008 and then bottle and heat pasteurize. Heating the cider to 140 - 145 is not cooking. I don't notice any difference in flavor after heating. Not sure how you would do this for kegging...

"You got lucky but I surely wouldn't throw good brewing practices to the wind thinking that mistakes wont come back to tell on you." I agree. I got lucky. My temp control is very good as long as I don't screw up with the temp probe. But, it is still an interesting and unexpected result.

Well, I am drinking one of these right now. It tastes great. No off flavors that I can tell. Pretty amazing that nothing bad happened despite being waaaay out of the norm. I guess the process is much more forgiving that I thought.

I brewed a NEIPA. Fermented it for 2 weeks, then took it out of the temp chamber and dry hopped. After another 2 days I was ready to bottle so I took it out of the chamber. It was really warm. Yikes. Somehow the temp probe fell off and it was outside of the chamber. So my little heating...

I found several conversion tables on line that convert Brix to specific gravity. They all agree and also agree with Brix and specific gravity readings on my hydrometer. It appears that the conversion used on the refractometer is just plain wrong. On amazon I found a different...

OK, thanks. I have already used the screw to zero the scale, and I will do the 1/4 pound sugar thing. I will ignore the specific gravity scale on the refractometer, but why in the heck is it even there?

I am making a batch of Welches wine and I am trying to adjust the sugar to get to a good specific gravity. I am new to using a refractometer. When I use the hydrometer it measures 1.107 and on the other side of the hydrometer there is also a Brix scale which says it is about 25. When I...

I should add that the reason I check the temp twice during the mash is because I stir the mash at that time. I think that stirring the mash increases my efficiency. When I open the oven and stir, this reduces the oven temp, so I turn the oven back on to account for that. If you don't want to...

I did many 2.5 gal batches on the stove top. Wrapped the pot with reflectix, checked the temp every 20 min. and added boiling water to raise. But, I am now using the oven. I did several dummy batches with water to test how to keep the temp stable. I put a digital reading corded probe...

68 yo. I read somewhere that 2 drinks a day is good for your heart and health. So, since I want to be healthy I try hard to drink 2 per day (not a struggle). Maybe more on weekends. My homebrew is delicious.

I did not know that about attenuation. I love this forum. So much to learn!