Recent content by SalmoSalar

I mostly brew lagers, but I do the same thing for ales, except don't ferment as long. I ferment in the same fermenting vessel till it's done,i.e F.G. hasn't changed, 4-5 weeks for lagers at 50F and 2-3 weeks for ales. Then I rack to the corny keg, and leave it on gas at the same...

I like s-23, but the last 2 German pilsners I did I used s-35/70, and I liked that too. I'll be brewing a Baltic Porter soon and plan to use 3 11g packs of s-23 for that. I chill to my fermenting temp 50F and pitch, without the d-rest, and it works great.

Tweaking the roasted grain quantity to 1/2 # each and adding a pound of Maris Otter would add another point to the ph (estimate) I'm wondering if tweaking the recipe is preferred to adding a couple of grams baking soda to the mash and sparge water as a means of adjusting the mash ph. I'm...

Just brewed a Brown Porter according to JZ's recipe: (p. 155 Brewing Classic Styles) 10 # Maris Otter 1# Brown Malt 1# Crystal 40 (I used Caramunuch ll) .625# Chocolate malt My actual mash ph was 5.3. The estimate from EZ Water Calculator was 5.54 as indicated below. I know adding a...

OK, so I'm a little worried; I have no visible signs of fermentation yet 24 hours after pitching a starter of wlp800 pilsner lager yeast. I had a wort ph 5.4 before pitching; it is now 5.0. Is this OK? This also only my second lager ever. The first one I used s-23 and it started...

Similar story, I called Aqua Maine and they transferred me to the Lab guy and a few days later he emailed me the info I was looking for. I dropped off a bottle of beer for him a few days later:mug:

OK thanks, I understand that. I guess I should have re read your post as you were talking about the time it takes the reading to stabilize.

I'm a little confused here I thought sauermalz would lower pH, and that you would use it to control pH in lighter color beers where you didn't want to add more minerals.

I looked at a diet and nutrition website that I use, and looked up malted barley; it had nutritional information for "malted barley flour". It showed that a pound has 167.8mg Calcium, and 440mg magnesium. For an average mash of say 10 lbs and mash water addition of say 16L I calculated that...

Was it a brown ale those seem to be more eruptive. I know it happened to me once too.

Thanks for the reply. It sounds like I need to get a pH meter as I have been using strips. So, it sounds like your recommending to add 1 tsp of gypsum and 2 tsp CaCl2 and adjust ph with chalk if needed, and try a batch w/o gypsum as well. It also sounds like you are recommending Mag...

I just recently found the water adjustment primer sticky and it has got me thinking of changing the way I've been doing water adjustments. About a year ago I started doing water adjustments ala JP and info I listened to on Brew Strong. I'd like to think my beer improved. The advise given...

I use the plastic Champagne stoppers that my lhbs has: push them in by hand, and then tighten the wire cage. The plastic stoppers are reusable and you don't have to buy a floor corker. (i only use ommegang bottles, i've found that other belgian style bottles are either too tight or don't seal...

An update on the Belgian Blonde: the first couple of days the fermentation temp went up to 80F so I just kept it there with the temp control and hot pad. Checked the gravity today (1 week since pitching) and it went from 1.065 to 1.010. The sample tasted pretty good too. I didn't detect any...

Greetings all, I'm not sure if this is where I need to post this thread, but here goes. Well the situation is this: my buddy and I brewed a Belgian Blonde yesterday; pretty much Jamil's recipe except I mashed at 147F instead of 150 as per Ron Jeffries recipe in Brew Like a Monk. p. 229. Yeast...