Recent content by BroStefan

I’ve use and love my conical but I never need to take more the a pint or so. About 1 day after I pitch I dump a pint of pretty thick trub. A day or two after high Krausen the yeast has compacted and I save that. This makes it easy...

The cheese cave needs one

I just went to my local Ace hardware and bought a couple from the plumbing section. Just eyeballed the size. Works a dream.

Just rinse it really well and your fine

Ph strips are plenty accurate for this purpose. I make Starsan 2.5 gal at a time. I’ve had some over 3 months old and Ph has been well under limit. On the other hand mix it with RO and it stays brilliantly clear. Very pretty.

Homebrew Allstars for the insights into how top amateur brewers approach the craft.

I use the Tilt Pi app on a pi zero w. Works a dreams.

I find that my 2 need to be calibrated in water when use it for the first time or after a battery change. If you can pull a hydrometer sample now do that, compare and add an additional calibration point. One of mine does fine with one calibration point but the other needs two. Another...

I don’t know about OP methods but I’ve coached a number of new Brewers and three common misunderstandings I see. 1 - an over vigorous boil. All you need is enough to see the Wort gentle turning over of the Wort. This minimizes heat stress. 2 - uncovered boils don’t need to be completely...

I usually get 40+ days on.

Another thing - it is particularly helpful for meads and lagers where I want to take some action when a certain gravity point is passed. Once I had a mead that stalled out. I saw the curve flatten out. I got right in, took a Ph reading - too low. Added some potassium bicarbonate and I could...

I have two and I hate fermenting without it in the beer. Once calibrated it is at least as accurate as a typical hobby hydrometer. You can get occasional strange readings for a single data point but these are easily edited off the spreadsheet so the chart looks right. It also “bumps along” +- 2...

What model AC unit did you use?

For a drip tray I use a SS mud pan I got for cheap from a Ace Hardware, help on by magnets.

A couple of things here. You under-pitched by about half. I pitch at least 2.5 grams per gals in my mead. Keep in mind Wine yeast packages are 5g while beer are 11g. Also, the fruit is not adequate nutrition for the yeast. If you are learning from an older book you’ll see that but it is just...