Recent content by MountainGuardian

I had a teacher in HS that also went to my church and she was quite the brew master. She made wines, whiskey and beer. When she was moving she contacted me and hired me to pack her place up for her and I got to see a lot of her equipment and a lot of the chemicals she used. I ran across one...

Are you trying to get a higher alcohol concentration or to leave behind some of the alcohol soluble compounds extracted from the maceration? If you are looking for more alcohol content you can dry the Everclear with table salt. Adding table salt will chemically combine with the water causing...

The easiest way that I know of to bypass distillation is to add table salt. NaCl is insoluble in alcohol and is hydrophilic (it attracts and bonds with water). Adding in a (fairly large) amount of table salt (you should have a little more than is soluble in the water after shaking well for a...

1 pound of sugar in 1 gallon of water will give a specific gravity of 1.039. multiply 0.039 X 131.12 and you get your "potential" ABV of 5.114% alcohol content. Keep in mind this is "potential" in a perfect run with perfect temperature and nutrition with perfect yeast growth and perfect oxygen...

I am using a small air pump in my fermenter as well. I am fermenting sugar washes and the high sugar content reduces the oxygen capacity of the wash, aeration is an easy solution and the solution that large scale commercial operations producing high percentage ethanol for fuel use. I also find...

I too am a crossover from growing mushrooms as well. In fact I am now brewing so that I can get suitable alcohol for extractions without spending a fortune. I am used to the "hyper" sterilization we use in the mushroom growing process, then I watch these home brewing videos and just cringe...

I am currently brewing 3 gallons of sugar wash to a calculated ABV of 14% to 15%.

This is going to sound a little funny considering where I am at and considering that I brew, but I don't really drink. I don't have anything against drinking I just have no desire to drink myself. I brew to get high proof alcohol to use in alcohol extractions of various medicinal mushrooms and...

I follow "Barley and Hops Brewing" channel on Youtube, he is a "great" resource for learning this...

I am using a fish tank heater myself. It is 100 watt and set to 78F +- 2F so it could range between 76F and 80F. I just have my fish tank heater in an 80 ounce pickle jar full of water inside a box and I place my fermenting pickle jars around the heater jar. Then just cover the box and jars...