Recent content by RM-MN

Yes, use it.

I'd be worried about introducing acetobacter along with the air/oxygen. The last thing I would want would be 2/3 of a batch to turn into malt vinegar.

Pop down to your local paint store or big box lumber yard and pick up a paint strainer bag, 5 gallons is a good size. Bring your mash water to strike temp, put the bag into the mash container, and mix in the grains. The bag will act as the filter and is nearly impossible to plug without...

Flaked oats and wheat are missing the enzymes to change starch to sugar. Put them all in the mash.

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Stop with the recirculating and heating. Your mash doesn't need it.

i never try bottling beer before day 10 and most of the time I let it have a minimum of 2 weeks. 3 weeks won't hurt it as it lets more of the suspended yeast and trub settle out so you get less trub in the bottles.

Fruit juices and honey lack the necessary nutrients for yeast so you need to add it to make wine or mead. Beer has nutrients (free amino nitrogen) so it doesn't require nutrient added. It won't hurt the beer to add it and some people swear it makes better beer.

You don't get starch to sugar conversion until the starch is gelatinized. The smaller the grain particles,. the faster the starch gelatinizes. Going to a tighter crush makes the starch more accessible to the water for the gelatinization. Going to a 90 minute mash gives a bit more time for that...

The first 3 causes of low mash efficiency are: 1 The crush. 2. The crush. 3. The crush. A refractometer will give you a quick reading of the gravity so you can make a choice between extending the mash (90 minutes might have helped) or adding DME. The real solution is to mill the grain...

Quick solution. Buy another fermenter. Bucket fermenters are cheap and they work well. For instance: https://www.northernbrewer.com/products/translucent-nb-6-5-gallon-bucket https://labelpeelers.com/equipment/fermenting/6-5-gallon-fermenting-bucket/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20152976385...

The sparge will increase the alcohol content of the beer but shouldn't change the taste. Doing a step mash, whether with a electric element, propane/natural gas cooktop, or induction will require constant and vigorous stirring to avoid overheating the bottom of the mash and denaturing the...

When you heat water then convection currents mix the water so the temperature becomes very stable. When you heat a mash, the currents are restricted and it is very easy to get the bottom of the mash too hot without heating the top. That destroys the enzymes you need for conversion. Unless you...

Be aware that wheat has no husk so if you are using a conventional mash tun you probably need to add something like rice hulls to replace the missing husk to provide a filter medium. Your base malts should have sufficient enzymes to convert nearly half their weight in unmalted grains so limit...

For most grains bought and crushed by a vendor, you are not likely to get complete conversion in 30 minutes. 60 would be more appropriate and if the crush is poor, more like 90 minutes for the mash. I visited a brewery that used a 2 hour mash, just for comparison. The recipe is based on a 70%...