Recent content by Kahless

There are a lot of tutorials on how to build your own using plumbing supplies as well. While it is a lot of physical effort, you can stir constantly while cooling in the ice bath and this will make a big difference. Adding salt to the ice bath should also help heat be absorbed from the pot.

I've no idea as it was a long time ago (before my current brew calc). It'd depend on the type of hops and the characteristics you want from them eitherway. I'm sure 1oz/gallon will be grand :rockin:

I can't say what I would do as it would change brew to brew just to explore the differences ;) Plenty of wheat beers have been made with that kind of schedule so that seems fine. Only other thing I can think of is if an extended duration at the first rest broke down protein to much, preventing...

When a similar thing happened to a beer of mine as to the underhopped IPA, I made a hop tea and added significant dry-hopping. When I opened the first bottle it tasted both sweet and bitter at different points in taste, and was not pleasant, but after another month it was fantastic; the flavours...

What was your mashing plan? I had an raw oat witbier that was crystal clear, as I got stuck at an undesired protein rest on the way from a beta-glucanase rest to saccharification.

With a no-wheat grain bill and T-58 fermented at 22C, I found my Belgian Blonde to taste like la chouffe after 6 months. If you are aiming for the spicy character of that beer then give that a go. I used T-58 after that for a Witbier (at 17C) but wasn't keen on it for that style, as it just...

Cheers for the thought limulus :) According to the manufacturers it is vegetable oil that was used to ease things together during the initial assembly and is nothing to worry about. They say it should clean off with alcohol followed by a bit of warm water. This didn't work though, at all, so I...

My tap a draft arrived today (UK, so old version). I'm dissapointed in the packaging; single ply carboard box just big enough to fit the bottles, with CO2 cartidges loosely rolling around the bottom of the box. Nothing done to protect anything. The bottles are pretty heavily bashed at the...

Around the time the burrs should be coming in, you can switch to one with higher potassium and phosphorous in the mix in order to provide nutrients that encourage flowering. You can use tomato feed for this. Before then, equal ratio fertilizer is good.

If one of them sounds interesting to you, you could go for dwarf varieties that don't require the same level of growing height. In the second year you would still be winding the twine around supports at a lower angle, but it wouldn't get out of control, and it'd be a gorgeous thing to have on...

Check page 42 of this hop handbook for more information on diagnosis and management - If that is Hop Looper causing all that damage it would be good to take care of it. For something that size, on a home garden scale i'd look at picking it them off each night once the sun goes down, and doing a...

Wow, that's crazy. Another fascinating thing about growing hops.. I could almost forget that they are destined for beer making. B-Hoppy: Awesome! Thanks for the info. I'm going to leave this one underground to do its thing. day_tripper & thaymond: Thanks for the replies; based on those stories...

I am growing First Gold, in their Second year (they are growing well apart from two heads which have been nibbled off but I have backups). Tonight I found a section around the base of the plant which looked like a large root had been dug up, and wondered how that could have happened, but on...

The standard round fermentation bucket is used in the food industry for liquids, e.g. massive tubs of yoghurt or ketchup at fast food places, so it may be to do with that design already being available and in mass production. This then adds the question, why not transport 5 gallons of ketchup in...

Congratulations on the first lager. I've been thinking about trying mine recently but just not made the leap. That's a lot of headspace for secondary; did you purge the top with CO2?