Recent content by kylevester

According to the water quality report you linked to, Detroit pulls from Lake Huron, Lake St. Clair inlet, and Lake St. Clair effluent (near Lake Erie). The Lake Huron plant is in St. Clair County and would serve that surrounding area. The 0 ppm of Chloride is a little dubious, I'd expect more...

DI water is even more pure than RO water. True DI water is devoid of minerals and will have a lower pH. The RO water you typically get in the store will not be that pure, but should be very much like distilled water. Something like less than 10 ppm of TDS is expected. However, there are many...

What valves do you have and do you ever take them apart to clean? Ball valves cannot be CIP fully. Small amounts of liquid get in the cavities behind the gaskets. Great places for bugs to grow.

I don’t necessarily recommend this, but... Take the poppet out of the keg and disconnect. Just remember to depressurize the keg before removing the disconnect. I’ve done this a couple times when hops have clogged the tube/poppets, but ended up spraying beer all over the place. Cause it’s easy...

You can try patching with lead free solder. Heat the area and with the hole pointing down touch solder to it. Keep doing this until you get a bead to stick. Just needs to be hot enough to melt the solder. Test by running water through it. Clean the outside well. I am not a plumber. I did...

I can’t plug in to Brun Water at the moment, but my guess looking at that is your mash pH may be a little high and your sparge pH is definitely high if you’re not adding any acid. Even with distilled water, I add acid to every batch except those with roasted malts. High pH and temperature can...

Whether the hose is attached or not shouldn't affect the rate at which the wort leaves the mash tun. With an open system like that, gravity dictates the flow rate out of the vessel, all else being equal. What is the height difference between the bottom of the mash tun and the top of the boil...

I tried doing this one time and completely ruined my beer and dumped 5 gallons. Good luck. Maybe use a hopshot instead?

New link: 1 -- 10 gallon mash tun: $150 1 -- Bayou Classic Burner: $50 (same type of burner as the Blichmann) 1 -- Blichmann Burner: $70 2 -- Propane tank (full w/ 20 lbs): $50 each 1 -- Immersion Chiller: $25 1 -- Counterflow Chiller: $50 (3/8" copper pipe) 1 -- legally purchased 1/2 barrel...

All of the equipment you can buy varies in price significantly based on size, quality, name brand, new/used, etc. You could easily get the same stuff for under $500 or spend north of $3000. For a 3-tier set-up you need the minimum (and I'm likely forgetting some things): Equipment: Space to...

It's too late for this one, but next time you could ice the beer to concentrate it up. Brew a normal belgian strong ale, then lower the temp enough to freeze the water and pull off the concentrated beer. If you concentrate it before souring, you'll increase the intensity of the sour as well.

What Denny said... If the bitterness is where you like it with what you've brewed, then keep your additions as you've done in the past. For flavor and aroma, add hops later in the boil or at flame out to help keep that around. And NO OXYGEN post fermentation. That's the biggest killer of hop...

A lot of bottled water is tap water that maybe is filtered through activated carbon to remove chlorine and residual organics. Not surprising your tap water would be on par or even better. But the issue remains for temperature and pH, regardless of how good it tastes w/o treatment. The pH is the...

Tap water generally won’t be good chemistry wise. Higher than desired pH and alkalinity can promote tannin extraction leading to harshness and astringency.

You’re fine on yeast. You removed the heavy stuff that settles first. What was the FG according to the recipe supposed to be?