Recent content by organikbrewer

I would have to taste the beer to really give a good answer, but it seems to me your just over doing your cleaning and sanitizing. I think your just tainting your beer with cleaner or sanitizer. Before you fill your keg just rinse it well with potable water. Home brewers have been scared...

I used to buy a chlorine tablet at wal-mart for 95 cents and put it into a tote of cold water and let the bottles sit for a day or two, and all the labels would all fall off easily and there would be no glue residue. And I was able to use the water a few times before I dumped it.

I'm thinking you could just make a starter add yeast and allow it to drop the ph to the low 4 like normal. You would want to keep the IBUs under 10, so you dont inhibit the acid producers. When the yeast has started producing gases you could add a healthy portion of Lambic beer. Once the...

In my opinion I would say a quart to a half gallon at the most. You don't want to drain your mash of to much wort. Like your saying it will heat sink and drop your mash temp, that's not good unless you reheat it as it goes back into the mash. Also you want to avoid ever letting your mash bed...

Good question, both work. I try to use enough sparge water so that I only use the Trombone, which keeps from jarring the mash bed and letting loose bits of malt. But sometimes I have to open up the bottom valve. I also use an inline screen to catch any particles that may get through.

Does anyone know how to rotate photos on this site?

The 1ml of sediment in a 1000ml is just a rule of thumb. It does not need to be cool, it just needs a few minutes to settle out. I wouldn't worry about it to much as a home brewer, you can just put a hop bag on the end of your tube to catch any particles. 15-20 minutes of recirculation...

Sorry for being short, I am not attacking anyone personally, but the methods. I am sure everyone is great and are great people sit down and drink a beer with. I feel like I have to keep repeating myself. I have restated things several times, and it seems to me that some people are ignoring my...

It's funny in America time always trumps quality. Even at a hobbiest level apparently. I don't care if people agree with me or not, but they are arguing with me to validate their quick brewing techniques. Their goal is not to make refined beers, but to pump out beer as quickly as possible. I...

The 1 1/2 pipe is the grant. I plan on making one with float switches, but for now I just crack the pump exit valve and match it by adjusting the trombone so the fluid level in the grant stays in the same spot. As far as water treatment I use Gypsum, CaCl, and Lactic acid or Citric acid. You...

Here are a few more pics. For the guys who want to run off fast, you can still do that with a trombone. Maybe not as fast as you want, I am still wondering what your target time is? You should really shoot for an hour, and don't worry about over extracting, you need to breach 98% efficiency...

As I promised pictures of my trombone, for those brewers who don't treat their beer like a microwave dinner.

I brewed a Kolsch yesterday in 5 hrs. It took me 120 minutes to runoff and I had a efficiency over 90%. Getting a good consistent efficiency, means I can calculate out my grain bill and OG with consistent results. If my OG if off than so are my hops. I know you guys, don't have the time...

I am sorry you don't have time, that is to bad, because beer takes time and I feel it should never be rushed. But if you don't have the time, you can cut corners. You can get good conversion in 20 minutes, just use good two-row with very little specialty malts. Less than 10% of grist. Also...

Sorry, I think I was having a bad day yesterday. I am pretty sure I went over why you get better extract in earlier post. A fast flow causes wort to take the path of least resistance, and that causes channeling. When you create channels, your are not rinsing the grain, you are pulling sparge...