Recent content by scasey1972

Since I do not have either an immersion or counter flow wort chiller, I am thinking about backing off my boil size. If I go down to 3.75 gal, I will still be able to use an ice bath in the sink to cool the wort down. Any concern with not doing a full boil? I still plan on doing partial...

Well...last night was the first time I brewed beer and absolutely hated doing it. I started at 7:30 PM and did not finish until 2:30 AM. It was a long night! I recently purchase a plastic 5 gallon mash tun for my partial mash recipes. This was my first chance to use it. My recipe called...

I have the plastic container that the hydrometer came in, as I use it for storage. I probably can use that for now. However, I guess I need to order a hydrometer test jar. Learning... Thanks for the picture. I have always tested my extract beer before pitching the yeast to get the gravity...

Damn... I just read some stuff about PH. If I am not monitoring that, am I going to screw up my partial batch? If so, what do you use to test PH?

I have a pyrex two quart glass pitcher. I could probably take a sample with that and pour it into a plastic 1 gallon pitcher. That would allow me to cool the wert to sample with my hydrometer. I will mark the plastic spoon as per your suggestion. Great stuff!

Yooper, what if I do not have a turkey baster or wine thief?

I guess the other key questions, is how the heck do I measure my boil volume? I can follow the instructions of the home brew recipe, adding the appropriate amounts of water when I fill my mash tun and sparge twice. Should I somehow measure the amount I get into the pre-boil brewpot???

I am going to be doing my first partial mash with a plastic mash tun. I have the recipe setup within Beer Smith, and am electing to do two batch sparges at 168 degrees to bring my boil volume levels up to 6.41 gallons. I think I understand this process, after reading a lot. The estimated...

I usually rack from my secondary (carboy) back to a clean and empty plastic bucket. This leaves the yeast cake and sediment behind. I then add my bottling sugar (5-6 ounces) directly to the 5 gallons in the bucket and stir the batch very slowly (mixing the sugar and beer). Finally, I rack the...

I left the beer in a plastic primary fermentor bucket for ~ 7 days. I then moved the beer to a plastic secondary carboy for another 3 weeks. I then added sugar to the batch and transferred to bottles. It has been in the bottles for nearly 5 weeks. Like I said, the beer is really hazy and has...

Here is my recipe. The beer is very cloudy, and has a husk flavor. The carbonation is good. I am guessing that since I failed to filter the beer or use a mash tun, I have a lot of "stuff" floating in the beer, messing with its flavor. Damn... ---------------------- 3.00 lb Light Dry...

I brewed an Oktoberfest beer. I kept the beer in the primary for 7 days, and then transferred it to a secondary carboy for 2 more weeks. It has been in a bottle for around 4 weeks. The beer is very hazy. It also tastes "funny". I am wondering if the wort did not ferment fully??? I...

I recently made two five gallon batches of "partial mash" beer. However, I did not do things correctly... 1) I did use beer smith to calculate the amounts of mash and sparge water, striking temp, etc. This part I did correctly... 2) I warmed up water to ~ 170 degrees and added a bag of...