Recent content by maxr

If you live near commercial hop farmers or other people that grow hops for homebrew, they will appreciate it if you kill the males. It's just the same as for cannabis. One male plant will ruin the crops for your whole neighborhood.

Unless you're starting a hop breeding program, it's a better idea to grow known cultivars from rhizomes (root cuttings) instead of seeds. Seeds will be male and female and having male hop plants around will pollinate the female hops, producing seeds (undesirable).

I have only used it once but it made a very nice Munich Helles. I see many people advocating for 34/70 but I do not enjoy that yeast - I find that it requires a long rest to pass a forced diacetyl test.

I haven't entered a competition since switching from a home depot cooler and single propane burner to an electric all-in-one system, but my impression is that the beers that I made with the old, cheap system were as good as and possibly better than what I brew with the ebiab system. I won...

There is a thread about the Max2 that covers adding heater control. I cut and spliced a couple of extension cords into my Max2 to control a 110V heating element and it works well.

See if a magnet will stick to it. Magnetic = stainless, nonmagnetic=brass.

I drank a bottle of Drie Fonteinen gueuze recently and the best by date is 20 years from the packaging date. They use a cork and cage on a very heavy glass bottle...

If you're willing to consider BIAB, there's no reason to exclude the all-in-one systems. I have had a grainfather since 2015 (1st gen) which had the melted plug issue and was replaced out of warranty - shitty design but great customer service. If I was shopping now, I'd look for something that...

This is one of those things where if you have to ask how to do it, you don't understand enough to do it safely.

Thanks. That kind of removes it from contention. I'm surprised the MoreBeer hasn't offered a cooling coil similar to what SS Brewtech include with the unitanks.

Thank you for posting a detailed review of the new conical. Out of curiosity, what was the ambient temp when you tried to cold crash? Do you think that you'd be able to ferment at lager temperatures in a 110F garage with the coolstix?

I have these disconnects in 3/8" size and have had no leaks with the glycol set to -2C. SS Brewtech sells a custom version of these disconnects with their very overpriced tubing kit. They may use a different o-ring material to get a lower temperature rating - not sure.

It's not really worth talking about electrical costs if you're going to buy a $500 conical to do the job of a $20 carboy. I went glycol with my unitank and have zero regrets. We have very warm tap water in the summer and it gets the wort down to lager pitching temps in a matter of minutes...

A heat pump can move more heat than the power input. Look up Carnot Carnot cycle on Wikipedia.

I was using this battery heater for a while. It works well and never gets very hot as long as it's in contact with the conical. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08B7ZG83P/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I did end up buying a Spike CF5 heater and it works just as well. Both of...