Recent content by goodsuds

I have had a similar struggle. Here is my method which has helped me greatly. I live in St. Louis and our water here is very good but it is treated with chloramine. I filter my water very slowly (~1gpm) through an RV filter and add a crushed Camden tablet to my HLT and let it sit for a few...

Thanks, I appreciate that! Good luck on your brew day and let me know how it turns out! I should mention that after I shared this with more people I decided to leave the recipe as is. I found that it appeals to people who don't particularly care for "dark ales" (you know the type, the...

If they're unwilling or unable to send you beer due to shipping costs, distribution, etc. maybe they'll be open to sending you some smoked malt and various swag? I think it'd be cool to brew some beer with their smoked malt.

So, I had been trying to save this for our anniversary on the 16th but I just found out I'm losing my job in a couple of weeks. What a kick to the teeth! We've been drinking this beer now since I'm trying to avoid spending any money on anything (including store bought beer), and my other two...

Could be, but I only get it on light beers and I reuse the kegs batch after batch without issue. Frustrating to try and pin down.

I think the wireless speeds would depend on your router and wireless clients. I do not have gigabit fiber but you can review the speeds of other users on the ISP on ookla.com and dslreports.com. FWIW, if you have a router capable of 40mhz wide wireless N or A and you have clients that match...

My notes from the Pilsner shows that I added 1.6mg of calcium chloride and 2.5ml of lactic acid to my strike water for a chloride:sulfate ratio of just under 1.0. With regard to the off taste, it isn't that nobody else tastes it, it's just the beers I send to competition don't have it (which...

Well, my wife wanted to start drinking the keg, and I can't say I blame her, but it's about half full and I figured I'd better snag a pic since it cleared. I had to move the keg last night to swap out an empty from the back of the fridge so some crap got stirred up, but it's still pouring...

Thank you everyone for your feedback. I think I'll brew another light ale and just use RO water from the store. I think they post their chemistry on their website so I can just make additions as needed to get to the right ratios. If that doesn't work I guess I'll get new buckets and plastic...

Doh. Yeah, I got it backwards. I forgot darker grains are more acidic. I just had my water tested again and it only changed slightly so I believe it to be pretty stable, but I'm sure it fluctuates since our primary water source is the Mississippi River. I don't aerate with oxygen but I...

The only other thing I can think of is that the absence of dark grains is leading to a lower mash pH that I'm calculating I should be at, and somehow that is stressing the yeast. I don't have a working pH meter any longer and so I've been using these crappy strips that are impossible to read...

I brew 5 gallon batches. I use Mr. Malty to be sure I pitch sufficient yeast. I keep my yeast in the fridge, including dry yeast. I rehydrate when I use dry yeast. My fermentation schedule and temp depends on the yeast. For example, with US-05/1056 I've found that it's best to pitch around...

I'm an all grain brewer. I typically brew ales that are 10+ SRM. I filter my water slowly (about 1 gpm) through a KDF filter using a potable water hose from my sink and I add camden to my water to remove chloramines. I know my water chemistry and I use Kai's EZ Water spreadsheet to determine...

I think maybe we need Marshal and the Brulosophy guys to do an exbeeriment comparing a high mash pH brew with a normal mash pH. I'd be curious to see if using the same yeast strain with the same alcohol tolerance would result in a more attenuated beer.

I'd say you can call yourself an intermediate brewer when you can make consistently good beer and get your process down. Whether you brew all grain or not you're going to find that there are a lot of variables involved (i.e. temp control, pitching rates, water chemistry, sanitization, etc.) As...