Recent content by Elfer

I live in an apartment and do full boils for 5 gallon extract batches on my crappy electric stove, using an insulating jacket as you mentioned. Doing a partial boil should be totally fine.

Go for it. The worst thing you'll end up with is beer.

See if you can find a brand called "Hacker-Pschorr". Not very expensive (cheaper than Grolsch where I am), comes in 500 mL brown swing tops, labels float off in hot water, and the beer is decent to boot. I've got six dozen, thinking of getting more.

Really? I just take the tops off the bottles, toss them in a bucket of sanitizer, and sanitize the bottles as normal. Faster than capping I think.

I guess it's still called a vinator, it's just the table top version instead of the bottling tree/clear plastic dish one: http://homebrewsupplies.ca/product/1273-avvinator-bottle-rinser/ I'm not sure if this is the one you had, but I've bottled something like 15 batches with no hint of a...

I think at this point "vinator" is more of a genericized trademark. I've got a similar device that I picked up at my local wine shop which is much sturdier and better designed IMO (e.g. has a little plastic grate to prevent sanitizer from splashing around) I guess I should look more closely to...

I haven't made apfelwein, but I have made a batch of cider, and I think it tends to clear a lot better than beer does if you give it time. It took a little longer to carb up (maybe a month), but even once it was fully carbed there was little to no sediment at the bottom of the bottles. I could...

Probably around 1 hour (use 500 mL swing-tops, wife helps), although that could come down if I was more organized. My process is something like: Fill electric kettle and set to boil Go grab my brew kettle and all the fittings/bottles/etc. that I need for bottling Use now-boiled water to...

I try to hold the bag sideways and shake the extract out to reduce the amount of steam that gets into the bag. Then, I rub the near-empty bag between my palms, which causes any steamed extract to roll together into clumps/strands that I can shake out of the bag.