Recent content by Smiling Frog

You should get in the habit of taking the gravity readings. If you are using extract, you are correct in that so long as you are using the amount of water called for, the OG readings should be what the kit says. Also, provided you are using the yeast the recipe was designed for and you have a...

What has always been said/known is not always correct. The presence of alcohol lowers the specific gravity in a water/ethanol mixture. Not nearly as its presence increases the refractive index, but it does affect the reading. At around 15% abv, the SG is dropped around 0.005. If your FG readings...

Thanks, all. This is exactly what I was looking for, and it seems to fit my memories fairly well.

I am trying to find out more information as to how and when the method we now call Brew-In-A-Bag started. Googling is not of much help and the best information I can get is the Wikipedia article on Homebrewing which mentions that it started in Australia and was pioneered by a Patrick...

Just wanted to add, alcohol will denature pectic enzyme. It needs to be used prior to pitching the yeast.

You should send your recipe to the supplier and ask them to replace the ingredients. Obviously, they aren't going to pay for labor, but they should be on the hook for the ingredients. By now, they should have been able to find out what went wrong, whether it was simply a mis-labeled bottle or...

Sorry to disagree, but there is nothing in my post that is wrong. I never said that the critical point for CO2 was not 88F, nor did I say that it was safe to heat the tank to 150F. My point was that you can get a properly filled CO2 tank pretty hot without causing the rupture disk to blow, and...

My bet is that they supplier over-filed the tank. As has been mentioned, you can get a properly filled tank pretty hot (above 150F or 65C) for the 3000 PSI rupture disk to blow. However liquid CO2 has a high coefficient off thermal expansion, so if the tank is overfilled, a temperature rise of...

You are correct in that 13.8 Brix has a SG of 1.056. What I meant was a Refractometer Brix reading of 6.3 (on your phosphoric acid solution). That is, the Brix reading on the Refractometer when you test your diluted acid. If you give your acid about an eight to one dilution with distilled...

I have noticed high concentrations of phosphoric acid from some distributors before (which is why I created my Brix > Concentration equation). As you are obviously higher than stated, dilute it with distilled water to achieve a Refractometer Brix reading of 6.3 (or a hydrometer reading of 1.056)...

0.85 x 1.689 g/ml x 1 ml = 1.435 g phosphoric acid 4 ml water * 0.997 g/ml (density of water at RT) = 3.988 g 1.435 / (1.689 + 3.988) = .2528 or 25.28% That's pretty close to the 24.24% prediction from the Refractometer Brix reading.

If I had to guess, I would guess that whoever diluted the phosphoric acid you have did not mix it well. Probably just added the 85% acid to an appropriate volume of water, but did not mix. If filling is done from the bottom, your bottle came from some of the first ones filled. My guess, there...

So, to put it another way, c1m1=c2m2 where c=concentration (wt. pct.) and m=mass. Of course, if you're working in percent by volume (or, molarity, if you really want to make things more complicated), things are different. Definition of terms is important.

I did my dilutions by weight (I have a Mettler electronic scale that has 10mg resolution). I figure measuring mass is easier and more accurate than measuring volumes (particularly since volumes may not be additive). It also makes determining weight percent rather easy.

Just me. This is merely a empirical 2nd order curve fit to experimental data. If someone could post additional readings they have obtained, it would be helpful to verify my results.