Recent content by Sharkness

Thanks for the response. That makes sense to me. How do you go about running the CO2 into your fermenter while you are dry hopping?

Hi all, I'm a novice/intermediate just returning to the hobby after a few years off for grad school. When I left off I was just starting to make beers that I thought rivaled commercial quality. I just did my second all grain batch, which is a session IPA with 2 oz of dry hops. I'm now six days...

Thanks guys. So far so good on this brew. Vigorous fermentation within 8 hours, puking through the blowoff tube, all gravity numbers and temps pretty much dead on. I took good notes and can do little tweaks next round to reduce volumes since I lost a little less than I'd planned on. A couple...

Thanks a ton Yooper. I went with that brew365 calculator and it was incredibly accurate. 5 gallons in the mash, within a degree of the target. Vorlauf till no grain came through, fly sparged, 8 gallons in the kettle, 6 in the fermenter. The only thing was that my HLT cooled down quick from 170...

Clarity! Thanks guys.

Alright, thanks for responding. I've looked at this before. So I would mash in with the full volume this calculator suggests, drain liquid and pour it back over the top till it runs clear, drain it all into the boil kettle, and then pour the sparge water over it at 170 and drain that again?

Alright, so I've done enough extract to have made some beers that are better than just 'hey, I made beer!' and have done the obvious things to improve quality: OCD sanitation, immersion chiller, yeast starters, pure O2. Now I've jumped to an all grain setup with my old turkey fryer as a HLT with...

I guess I look at it in the pro column-- I like the fact that they're a small company, that I can write an email and be in touch with somebody who's actually involved with developing, making and using the product, and that I'm supporting a small business. Part of that means that they're dealing...

The house is in extreme makeover mode so lighting sucks, but you get the idea.

My pre-order 10g v3 came in last week. It's just like they describe, but nicer. The welds are perfect, and have been impeccably cleaned up, the damn thing is HEAVY with a feeling of quality, the silicone pads are all thick and stay in place, the etching is gorgeous… I've never seen a rival in...

Too late. NB had the 20% off deal yesterday, and I got a 10 gallon tun with false bottom. I think I'm just gonna get a Bayou kettle kit ($143 on Overstock with stainless valve and thermometer) and save the difference between that and a more blinged-out kettle for ingredients. Thanks for all your...

You know, just buying the 10 gallon cooler from Home Depot ($45) and a false bottom, valve, hardware, and tubing from NB comes out to only $5 less, albeit that's with 10 feet of tubing. I'm sure I could save some more by deal-hunting, but friends scraped together the funds for it and wanted to...

Thanks for the reply. That's really helpful. Question-- why do I need two burners? Do you run your HLT and boil kettle at the same time ever? I'm plenty strong to lift 8-10 gallons, and was planning on just having two tiers and boosting stuff up when I need to gravity feed it down.

Hi all, So I just got married, and one of the reasons that I'm so excited to marry this woman is that she was all about skipping the linens and silverware in crap and letting me ask for and equipment fund to go all grain. I want to keep things relatively simple (no pumps, electronics, big...

Cool, thanks a ton guys. I'll cut the grain to .5 and brew away. I'll let ya know how it goes in about 5 weeks.