Recent content by itzkramer

Well I haven't been on here in a while. Life got pretty busy. I'm FINALLY just tapped this keg. They sat on the yeast cake for 3 1/2 months, and then in the keg for another 2 weeks. I can definitely say autolysis is a myth, because these taste great. It was my first time using Citra. A bit...

Do not give people beer in exchange for money. That is all.

Steeping specialty grains is totally normal. Steep any specialty grains (crystal malt) at 155 degrees for 30 min before you boil. You will get more flavor and color from crystal, but no fermentable sugars. If you want fermentable sugars you have to steep a base malt (2 row), and any other...

I'd say go for it. You can get anything from 1/8in tiny blue flames all the way to large jet engine-sounding flames. With the durability of the square base and the price, its a winner in my book.

Ha, no way! Small world. I'm one of the mobile patrol guys. I work out at the Chester branches right now.

These are looking pretty good right now. Fermentation is rockin and the bungs are keeping a good seal on the water jugs.

Cool. Good to know! I'll most likely be using them within 2-3 months.

Thanks for the info. If I purge with CO2 can I get some more life out of them?

Buy a mill already.

Pitch yeast. Well look at that. A universal carboy bung fits right in there, and some beer line is the same size as an airlock. Ready to go in the basement. That's a little more than 2 gallons in the water jug. I did two batches back to back today and split a pack of US-05...

Mash is done. Draining the bag. The boil. Hops in mini plastic tubs. Flame out. Add the 1 QT ice. This will get it to about 110 pretty quickly, then off to the sink for a cold water bath. My tap water is pretty damn close to 32 right now, so total cooling time is only about 20 min...

So here's what I do for the winter. Everybody knows brewing in 15 degree weather sucks, and my hose for my chiller is frozen solid. I use the time to play with ingredients and make some fun test batches. I don't like using a 6 gallon better bottle on 2.5 gallons of beer, so I just use the...

Well, when I say I got it as "surplus," I mean it fell off the back of a truck. That's why I passed on the Homer Buckets. Those tags are actually the cheapest ones they sell at WalMart. 99 cents for 50. The jars are 1 pint. I just canned them at room temp and the temp difference was enough to...

The spill kits are about $130 i think. I got this one as surplus. They're made by Skillcraft, which produces pretty much everything for the Department of Defense. I'm hoping the hops will do well for at least several months. I bought a pound of each hops, and each jar will hold 1/2 pound.

I picked up this oil spill kit. It's a 25 gallon HDPE plastic tub with a threaded lid and water-tight gasket. The oil spill kit was just a bunch of individually packaged organic absorbent material and 100% cotton rags and stuff, so i'm not too worried about chemicals or anything. If you can...