Recent content by Christopher Darkly

Damn, that's impressive. I have my mill set to the minimum which is 0.018 inches (measured with feeler gauges) and I double crush and still only get 70%. BUt I'm going to try the trickle drip sparge. Running the grinder that tight puts a serious load on my drill and it's a Hitachi hammer drill...

Aquarium pumps are cheap and you can just use an inline disc filter to sanitize the air and slip the tubing under your foil cap. Works with starters or your mead.

I've done 5 gallon batches in an 8 gallon pot. You can use fermcap to keep from boiling over. It works well. AANd I use a lid to minimize losses as water vapor. People say boil with the lid off to let DMS escape. I guess they're probably right but it's never bothered me. DMS boils at about 100...

Calcium is a yeast nutrient and the RO process will strip that. But regardless I've used RO water and the fermentation still works. It might have been faster had I added yeast nutrients which you can get at any beer/wine making supply store.

I think by starter tea they mean the liquid that should have been packed with your SCOBY. It should have a strong vinegar smell. You dump all that in to your tea and sugar mix. If you have been doing 5 gallon beer boils you already are ahead of the game as far as a big kettle goes. Obviously the...

It won't stress it but it will just take longer. I do 5 gallons at a time. I have a gallon jug of SCOBYs some are 2 inches thick. I pour them all in a 5 gallon beer fermenter with my honey and green tea. It still takes a week or 10 days for the Jun to finish. At that point I keg it and force...