Recent content by DerekTC

To secondary or not to secondary is a hot topic. Personally, I primary for 2-4 weeks and then bottle/keg and have been just fine.

Sure can, although the results may be mixed. Check out the shake method for force carbing. YouTube has some videos on it if you do a search. I've also found that shaking at the desired PSI level is the best way to avoid over carbonating your beer. Good luck

You might want to make sure that you have long enough beer lines, too. Mine were too short when I started kegging and my system wasn't balanced which made for lots of foam. Here's a great article that explains all of that...

What kind of Mash Tun is it? I made mine out of a chest cooler. My ball valve also was loose and would move around. Turns out the threaded nipple I was using was too long. I got a shorter one and now everything is nice and snug. Maybe you're dealing with something different but that really...

I was thinking the OG was a little high, too. Thanks so much & I'll give your tweaks a shot. Cheers.

I'm going to brew my first Double IPA for the fall. I'm going for a darker red color with earthy hops and a bit of a malty backbone. How does this look? Style: Imperial IPA TYPE: All Grain Recipe Specifications -------------------------- Boil Size: 6.46 gal Post Boil Volume: 5.46...

I have ziplock'd mine and put it in the freezer next to my extra hops. Maybe that's overkill, but I've never had any problems w/ starters.

Not at all. I know people who do open fermentations (no lid at all!). Your beer will be just fine.

Looks great. Congrats!

+1 on the starter, but in this case you could pitch it and see what happens. I had an English Witbread yeast not swell and I pitched it after 24 hours with great results. As long as your temps are fine give it a pitch, relax, don't worry, and have a home brew. That's been my experience, anyway.

+1 on boiling it first. I just saw a pic on the reddit homebrew forum where a guy forgot and added the extract directly to the fermenter without boiling it first. A few days later he had some pretty nasty mold growing...

+1 I made my immersion chiller last week and it was super easy. The toughest part for me was bending the copper tubing without kinking it (I used 1/2'' coil and it took a lot of muscle to bend with the cheap-o spring pipe bender I got). One thing, though - my first go around I went a little...

The best advice I ever got when doing Mr. Beer was to always use the 3/4 method: 3 weeks fermenting in the little brown keg 4 weeks carbonating/conditioning in the bottles. It's hard to wait 7 weeks - especially if you're on your first few batches - but I found that it made a WORLD of...

Yeah, you're right - I worded that poorly. My hef. in the keg @ 35F and 20 PSI would have given it 3.5 vols of Co2 which is perfectly fine for a wheat beer. But, my 5' beer line from the keg to the faucet wasn't long enough to handle that amount. The system was out of whack which made the...

This article from Beersmith explains it well. This was my first keg beer and I didn't understand this concept. I cranked the pressure up to 20 PSI with only 5 feet of line and my keg lines were out of balance and over carbed. To have 20PSI I would have needed at least 7-8 feet. But now I...