Recent content by mprowland

I'm going to try it in a couple of days. I think having a Speidel fermenter will help a bit. I'm currently cold-crashing under CO2.

I've used known good "city" water, store bought spring water and I now use R.O. with BruN'water; none of which made a difference. The issue is that I don't taste enough of the darker grains. There seems to be an astringency that covers up any chocolate or roastiness flavors. I think I'm...

I repurchased the grain in separate bags. I threw the crystal in the mash and cold steeped the dark grains for 24 hours at room temperature. I did double up on my dark grains. I'm having a hard time getting a drinkable brown or dark beer so I didn't want to take any chances. If this one turns...

I doubled up on my specialty grains(roasted barley and chocolate malt) for what I thought was total of 2.5 lbs. When I got home I realized that my LHBS also doubled up my crystal malt as well and threw it in the same bag as the dark grains. I now have 4.5 lbs. in one bag. Can or should I cold...

41 here. I have 0 throughout the week and maybe 6 pints on the weekend. Anything more than that in one night and my next day is completely ruined.

I was about to finish my boil and I placed my wort chiller in for the last 5-10 minutes. When I hit "0" minutes, I cranked on the water and came back 10 minutes later to check on it. Little did I know that I didn't quite get all the water out of the chiller when I brewed last(I drain it every...

(I purge the keg before and after I transfer.) I may have spoken too soon. Just 3 days ago, there was a distinct bitterness on the back-end that covered up most of the wanted flavors. I tried it today and the bitterness is half of what it was. Normally when I make a dark beer, the taste...

We did not, he used straight well water with no additions. I would like to remind everyone though, I only started using treated RO water because all the various spring water and well water was giving me the same results. Treated RO, spring and well water have made no discernible effect on my...

As far as I know, all beer is carbonated, Nitrogen will not dissolve fully in beer. A nitro tap needs roughly 30psi to be able to push the beer out of the "small holes". If you used Co2 alone at 30psi, this will cause carbonic bite. Beer gas at a 75/25 (Nitrogen/CO2) keeps the beer from going...

I have made Stouts and Porters in the past where I had the ph up around 5.4-5.5. This was also before I controlled fermentation temperatures and watched out for oxidation. I'll have to readdress this in my next all-grain batch, seems very logical. My next batch (extract) may indirectly tell...

I ran into this problem early on with cheap thermometers; the temperature range would be 10 degrees between the different thermometers I had. I finally bought a decent one from Thermoworks(not the Pen). I tested it with ice water and boiling water, it was within a degree of each. I have not...

This is partially why I want to try an extract version of this; to rule out ph all together. I really have no accurate way to test ph.

Here are the salt additions with a bit of lactic acid to get the ph level down. I also verified that I am measuring "grams" and not "grains".

I like this idea better. I'll use primer's formula with my R.O. water. Before anyone asks, I do test my R.O. water with a TDS meter and it's around 003-004.

I'm beyond the headache stage, now I'm just determined and flat out stubborn. Not a all of my beers have been dumpers, although most of the browns,porters and stouts have been. The IPA's and Raspberry wheats have been decent, but I suspect the hops or fruit are covering up whatever the off...