Recent content by SFC Rudy

When I use honey I add it at high krausen.

The question you need to answer is how are you going to brew? What are your plans when you “upgrade”? AIO? BIAB? 3 vessel? Other? Look to your future brewing plans and that will answer a lot of your questions now. You can get a decent AIO with a steam slayer for the cost of a stove and air...

Buy and read the first few chapters of How to Brew by John Palmer. Then watch these videos he made https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/tutorials/how-to-brew-with-john-palmer/how-to-brew-video-series-with-john-palmer/ I also recommend this video series from the American Homebrewers...

This is what I recommend to brewers that are beginning to keg or are having problems. Do the math. 1. Piece of advice, ignore everyone’s “rules of thumb”. Unless they have the exact same system that you have what they do will not work right for you. 2. Pick a carbonation method...

I open ferment my Hefeweizen with Munich Classic in a 15 gallon sterilite container from Walmart. With open fermentation you want it shallow and wider. This is how I finally got my Hefeweizen to rival most of those I drank while stationed in Germany.

Kegging presents its own challenges to get it right. Even with kegging I still plan on it being at least a month before I drink my beer. I’ll carbonate with priming sugar when I know it’ll be awhile before that keg will be tapped.

Are your bottles clean? I mean using a brush clean? I got lazy for awhile and only rinsed after the pour, sanitized and refilled. After a couple of uses I started getting gushers. One day I was cleaning some nasty bottles and decided to clean my rinsed bottles and was surprised at how dirty my...

With a fly sparge the hot water is in contact with the grain for a longer period, raising the temperature of the grain itself which will extract some tannins. That and you have to monitor the pH. I only stir/ recirculate for about 5 minutes then drain, my grain bed doesn’t get hot enough to...

I use 2 Mash & Boil units, mash in one and batch sparge in the other. After a discussion with Denny Conn I started sparging with 200F water. The only effect is that I get to a boil faster. Another thing I found is that my malt pipe fits in my anvil fermenter. I have used a pump to...

I only brew in the morning. Gives me the rest of the day to do whatever. Night before I prep my water and set the timer on my M&B. Then I weigh and crush my grains. I usually dough in around 0630 and am done with clean up around 1000.

Crush your grain and check your mash efficiency. If you’re happy with it, that’s your setting. If not, adjust for your next beer and check again.

I used plastic buckets for almost 20 years with no issues. I only bought some Anvil fermenters because I had some disposable cash at the time. They didn’t make my beer taste better. You don’t need a bunch of expensive shiny equipment to brew great beer.

Dunkle Weizen

This book has the recipes you’re looking for.

Me and my fat fingers!