Recent content by bkboiler

Ha, old throwback from the library $1 sale.... The Company by Robert Littell Good ol CIA book. Writing seems pretty good...is first fiction book I've read in a while...nice to read a good story and not something that requires me to stare at an equation for several minutes trying to figure it out 🤔

I have a kegland "super automatic" bench capper. Its good, would not put it in the category of "will outlast me"...but it certainly is well made, a good value and not gigantic. I mounted it to some 2 x 4s I strapped together to make a platform, put rubber feet on the bottom and reamed a 1" hole...

related story... the family and I went up to the mountains a few years ago and we were in a cozy cabin and it was snowing outside... At 2am the CO alarm goes off. "EVACUATE! EVACUATE! Carbon Monoxide, Evacuate! 75ppm" it literally was blaring those words at probably 100dB. Like a fire alarm...

last few brews have been not terrible, so I'm excited for what's brewing currently... last week I made a mead that's still bubbling in the ferm chamber ... Sitting next to it watching soccer while Jamil's Nutcastle is mashing at 152F... tried to hook up my RO housing today, couldn't quite get...

was going to make a mead yesterday, but I was bottling a sour beer with my "backup" racking cane, which is a non "auto-siphon" style....tubing didn't fit right...and I hadn't used a plain cane in a while needed to 'reprime' several times and wasted a bunch of beer..needless to say it was kind of...

there are some setups with more than one mason jar to eliminate suck back and avoid oxygen ingress...a few places have them but NorCal brewing solutions springs to mind ..you may be able to rig something kinda like that but if your beer is already done fermenting you may have to rig up another...

I have pegboard that's up in my garage brewery. Helps access some bigger things like racking tubes, silicone tubes with QDs, mash paddle, spoon, etc... that was a pretty economical addition to improve convenience during brew day.. I also mounted the grain mill and floor capper on some wood and...

There was only one LHBS that I would go to that was independent that wasnt an hour plus each direction. That closed. The other LHBS is local, but it's owned by a conglomerate, so I don't feel any special draw to patronize them... In theory they create jobs locally, but the profit goes into the...

it's been a hectic week, and I am glad to get to brew today, but am pretty tired. Recipe called for 2.75 lb of munich and 2.75 lb of pilsner. I looked at the bag of pilsner and it said 3lb. So I just dumped in the bags of pilsner and munich and figured close enough. Well, the 3 lb bag is just...

making this right now ... https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/oktoberfest-1st-place-scored-42.390640/ will definitely not be ready in time for October, but oh well 🤷‍♂️

Interested!

cracked open a new aptera pH meter and used it for the first time. Calibrated and used it to take the boil pH. was too busy making a dark Candi syrup on the stove to take the mash pH... more motivated to put together my RO membrane and sediment filter onto my carbon block...has been annoying...

Bottled a Hefe last night that was a Schneider Weisse clone except fermented with Omega Bananza. It was a bit estery tasting from the fermenter warm...not dumping it, gonna wait a while and see if it mellows out. Maybe due to the yeast being a bit past best by date... Today I brewed a Bass ale...

I bottle straight from the fermenter. One fermenter I have used a spigot, one is a glass carboy (so I use an auto siphon). In either case, I use a bottling wand with a spring, so it holds the siphon perfectly. I dose a simple syrup to each bottle with a medicine syringe to carbonate them. I've...

taken a similar effort to this. Don't even know my body fat percentage, but it's an order of magnitude higher than 20 years ago. Have been 3-4 drinks per night on weekends for a few months now. Am planning to back that down to 1-2 drinks per night on weekends. I'm tending more toward a "special...