Recent content by DiegoBrewer

Porters and Stouts are more forgiving, so an overnight chill will probably be OK.

Invest in an imersion wort chiller, a fish tank pump and circulate ice water from an adjacent container/ice chest to get the final 20-30 degrees of cooling. For $100, it will be money well spent. BTW: Us Kilgore's are a hardy crew. Good luck with the Stout!

Good questions, but probably better answered by Brew Boss

I've had my 15 gallon with COFI for about 3 years and three dozen batches. I pull out the old turkey fryer set up if I need to do a double batch to remind me that I'll never go back to gas vs. a semi-automated electric system. Efficiency is steady at about 65% (wish it were higher). The droid...

@DiegoBrewer It sounds like you are getting low efficiency with lower gravity beers as well. How are you crushing your grain? What's your water like? I crush the grains at the local brew supply. Tried re-milling once, but scorched my heating element (grains too fine).

5 Gallon batch here too. 70% is still a challenge, even with Session beers using Beer Smith as a guide. 90 minute mash seems to help the most, but I bought the system to reduce time, so anything you hear that will get it back to 60-minutes would be great.

Just brewed a hi-gravity Old English with 24 LBS of grain. The sparge didn't get stuck, but it had similar results as your picture with the wort overflowing the top of the basket a full flow. I stirred the mash after 30-minutes, kept the pump at 1/4 restriction to keep the grains covered, then...

I've used OxyClean in lieu of PBW (a trick from Beer Smith) and it seems to work just as good for a fraction of the cost.

Double checked my water levels; they were correctly measured. Performed a 60-minute wet test and lost 1.7 gallons to a boil at 65% power, 209 degrees. Drained the kettle and 1.25 gallons were left in the pot below the outlet tube (level pot, no tipping). Doing the math: 9.5 gal start - 0.75...

I have a measuring stick with gallon markings that I gauged based upon adding water from a half-gallon measuring cup to the kettle. I added 2 teaspoons of 5.2 Mash stabilizer and it gave me about the right color to my testing strips. I started with 9.5 gallons at mash, 8.75 at boil, 6.5 after...

About 9.5 gallons for mash, 8.75 at start of boil, 6.5 gallons after a 90-minute boil, 5.5 into the fermenter. I dialed back the boil to 209 degrees which gave a nice rolling boil without any foam.

Merlinworks - sparging with clear water makes sense, along with compensating with base malt. I'll give a go next time.

I'm (sort of) glad to see that I'm not the only one with the Brew Boss Cofi system who are struggling with their efficiencies. I'm using the Beersmith 15 G Kettle, 5 G Batch default, but have been missing my SG's by a full percentage point. I brewed a Rye Pale last week, with the following...

Looking for an all-grain clone recipe of this Amber Ale. It's good stuff!

Fermenting Plinian Legacy (IIPA) and having similar results after over a month of fermentation. Still bubbling the air lock at about 6 per minute. Tasted great going into secondary three weeks ago. Patience is virtue, but I really want to bottle this beer! I'll give it a few more days...damn.