Recent content by DaveWade

I put a rubber tube into the hole of the ale pale and am using it as a blow of tube while I'm at work. I was told awhile back when I did have an explosion that if the beer is fermenting that vigorously, it should be protecting itself from infection. Is that right? I'm hoping it should be ok...

I put a rubber tube into the hole of the ale pale and am using it as a blow of tube while I'm at work. I was told awhile back when I did have an explosion that if the beer is fermenting that vigorously, it should be protecting itself from infection. Is that right? I'm hoping it should be ok...

Well I missed it again. I calculated my efficiency this time and got about 75%. I was aiming for about 1.090 and only hit 1.070. Obviously this was low again. I took all the advice (letting the sparge sit longer, draining off pretty slowly, etc.) The only real prob I had is since on not...

Excellent. Thank you, I hadn't thought of that

Can I boil down just using a rolling boil? Will a very high boil temp affect the sugars during the boil?

Yes I will be batch sparging. I understand typical retention is .1 per pound of grain so that would put me at pulling about 8 g of water out. But how much water should I use to sparge? I really only can fit about 6.5 g into my kettle

I'm brewing an imperial ipa and using 1.5 qts of water to my 19 lbs of grain puts me at mashing w 7g of water. So if I use another 3g to sparge I'm thinking I'll prob pull out at least 8g for my boil. Problem is that I'm only shooting for a 5g batch. Is this accurate?

I have a 4ft braid in a 48 gallon cooler that seems to work really well. I'm batch sparging also. I got the braid from using a washing machine connector, pulled out the vinyl hose and coiled up some 16 gauge wire and pushed it on so the water weight and grain won't smash it flat. There is a...

I just bought a 7.5g stainless pot and a propane burner. It's wayyy better than trying to use the electric stove. I understand also that w propane you have better temperature control w the open flame vs an electric stove. Plus the stove takes foreverrrr. I wouldn't go back to trying to do...

I should add that this will be a 5g batch

I am going to use 14lbs pale malt, 2 lbs Vienna, 1 lb crystal, 1 lb carapils, 1 lb wheat, and one pound dark Belgian candy sugar, and a ton of hops. I'm going to ferment using a trappist yeast. Does this sound about right? I'm shooting for an OG of about 1.090. According to my math...

So I'm not familiar w swamp coolers. It's this a fan you're blowing over frozen water bottles or something you're putting the carboy in w water and frozen water bottles?

Stupid question but what exactly is a swamp cooler? I do remember about a year ago when I took a hiatus from extract brewing someone suggested putting my carboy into a fish tank w a termostat control to keep the water at a constant temperature. Any problems w this other than extra equipment?

These ferment at higher temps? I just did a saison but this sounds like a good suggestion

I don't have a beer fridge w a temp control and my house is prob about 75 degrees. What can I brew the will ferment well at that temp? Or any ideas on how to maintain my fermentation at a lower stable temperature during the course of fermentation?