Recent content by gonzo brewer

I have made a clone of the Bruery's Black Orchard, which turned out great. Steep about 12 oz. of coarsh crushed carafa II with really cold water (50 - 60 degrees) for about 30 minutes. Add to boil in the last 15 minutes of boil. Or go buy sinamar.

Keep the wheat, you can lower it to .25 lb. Drop the aromatic. Change your 5 minute addition to whirlpool. Late hop or go home. Drink fresh. Looks tasty!!!!

I am brewing this tomorrow and I can't decide whather to use WLP051 or US-05. So I am using both!!! I'll picth a 1 liter starter of the WLP051 at the same time as hydrated US-05. I'll post back in 7-8 weeks.

Misting = too much work If you toss and wait, the grain/moisture all balances nicely.

I have a corona type mill and have been malt conditioning for the last 20 or so beers. My technique is 0.4oz. (by weight) per lb of grain. I toss my entire grain bill into 2 or 3 large plastic ziploc bags and pour in the measured water. I zip loc the bag with loose air space and toss/roll the...

I brewed this using 2 oz dryhop and WLP 051. A wonderful IPA even though I have never tried the original. This is a nice switch from the West Coast style IPA's. I ended up with 5.9% ABV (poor crush) 1.059 OG @ 50IBU. Would'nt change a thing.

Variable transformer - I plan to use a 220V 5500W element in my BK. http://www.newark.com/jsp/level5/module.jsp?moduleId=en_US/5773.xml I want to control my boil manually. What are the pros and cons of this vs PID controller?

I have a corney that won't seal and plan to primary in it tomorrow. I have no fermcap, so will make a 9 gal batch - 5 gal in carboy and 4 gal in corney. I will cut 1" off dip tube so I can transfer (CO2 push). Should I ferment with dip tube in place, or put dip tube in 4 weeks from now when...

Picked up a sixer last night. It is just OK to me, not bad but not great. I much prefered their 08 celebration.

Thank you Sacc - this makes sense.

Yeah, No question about using campden for brewing water. Makes perfect sense with no downside. The question is rinse water. Further search indicates rinse can be performed with tap water as long as kegs, equip are allowed to air dry and any Chlorine residual will gas off with enough time...

I have been using campden in my brew water (charcoal filtered water) with good results, however I rinse my BK, MLT and Corney kegs with tap water (my utility uses cloramines). My last batch of pale has a distinct medicinal bandaid taste. My plans for a solution are to build a permanent 10...

I have some Great Western 2-row and Briess 2-row to work with. Per their respective websites, the GW ranges from 1.8 to 2.2L and the Briess is 1.8L. I'll go with the Briess. Thank you HBT for confirming my intuition.

I made a hopback using the same canister as drez77. My buddy welded ss nipples at 1" up from bottom and 1" down from top. He also fabbed a SS 3 legged ring that supports a SS sink drain screen (OSH) at the bottom. The ID/OD match is not perfect, so I put a lttle bit of SS scrubbie underneath...

I completly forgot to buy pilsner malt yesterday and I'm jonesing for a Wit. I know it would not be "authentic", but I have all the other ingredient and the yeast is what is most important - right? Would you wait (next LBHS run in 2 weeks) or go for it now?