Recent content by portjeffbrew

Iodophor effectiveness is based off soil load and concentration. It will last longer than 8 hours depending on how frequent and "dirty" the parts you are sanitizing are. There are test strips available which monitor ppm to check strength although we simply mix up a batch every morning for...

Porters are generally very forgiving when it comes to flavors melding. With that said I would bet yours should taste fine. Your 2# steeping of Cholate malt should work out OK because you didn't crush it. Had you added that amount to an all grain mash it can be considered "heavy" (but outside the...

I have been getting about 82-86% efficiency fly sparging using a braid set-up in a Gott cooler with a make shift false bottom and a colander at the top to evenly distribute water. Make sure your water temp is correct and run your valve SLOW. It typically takes me almost an hour to run 5 gallons...

vtirish, Give it at least 7 days in the primary then take a reading. take another reading about a day or so later to see if it stabilized (it stabilizes when you get the same reading a couple days in a row). I like to leave beer in the primary for about 14 to 15 days but you could rack to a...

use Cote des Blancs yeast from Fermentis (no starter just re-hydrate).

I have had great outcomes using a store cider with P-sorbate as long as I add about 2lbs of brown sugar to a 5 gallon batch. I hit it with camden tabs and pectin tabs. Let it roll in primary fermentation for about 3 weeks then drop in some P-sorbate to stop fermentation and rack to 2nd after...

I don't mean to necropost but for anyone who reads this thread at some point: Kedco is well worth the drive. Great pricing on grain, decent hop pellet selection, and good overall inventory. They have mostly dry yeasts but they do carry the smack packs. I just found them after using the other...

I would suggest brewing a few extract kits to gain familiarity with the brewing process in general. Some of the key concepts are done in an extract kit and it will allow you to get "a flow" with your process. Keep in mind you can always "tweak" extract kits by adding additional hops, flavors...

15808+5= 15813

Should anyone care or read this thread again.....I just racked to secondary and the beer as is TASTES GREAT! Nothing like a tripple. Almost a Chocolate Stout clone with the same color. My guess is that I caramelized the malt with the overboil which gave the by-product of a chocolate taste. If...

For the record....Sierra Neveda went to twist off for about a year but then converted back to pop tops. Most micro and regionals will have pop tops while many commercial beers will have the twist offs. I did notice that locally Blue Point uses twist off.

So lets just say that some "outside circumstances" took my boil from 1 hour to four hours. I added a 30 min hop addition and awoke 3 hours later. I picked up where I left off. I was brewing a Belgian triple with DME, LME, and some belgian candy. When I awoke I did everything as normal...

Happy New Year!!! 15,216+5=15,221 Can't wait til June 1st!!!!! The gentleman behind me when I was purchasing my apfelwein supplies at the local grocery store asked "Do you own a pre-school?"