Recent content by steppenwolph

You know, my wife got me started in brewing as well. She got me a couple of books on the subject for a Christmas present, and said she thought I might enjoy it. Having now spent about $1200.00 on homebrew equipment, she may be having second thoughts, but still, she is very encouraging and...

Very nice work there, bt. That weld is sexy! Did you think about keeping the original fitting on the top, and making your new hole on the bottom of the keg? That way you could mount a 2" tri-clamp on it to make a convenient dump valve. Of course, then you got to put legs on you fermenter...

Looks like it will all be steeped, then, unless the amber malt needs mashing. If it does, I will probably sub it out for something that can be steeped.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'll post the results here when it gets brewed. I am really hoping to mimic the malt character of this beer, and let the hops can fend for themselves here.

It would be easier just to steep the grains, but I thought that the chocolate needed to be mashed. I put in the pale two row just to help out with the mash, since if the mini mash is too small, I can't control temp adequately. But if none of it needs to be mashed, then I am just gonna steep...

Just tried a sixer of this, the wife and I really liked it, so obviously, I want to try to brew it. Here is my starting off point. I would welcome any helpful comments. I am using Willamette and Northern Brewer because that is what I have. My preference is for dry yeast, but I am open to...

The discrepancy could also be due to temperature. The weight per given volume of water is measured at the temperature of water's greatest density, which is something like 34 degrees F, IIRC. That, and the slight inaccuracies in the markings on your pyrex measuring cup, and the vagueries in the...

Simple and direct, very nice. Thanks again for passing it along.

Any hop can be a boil hop for bittering, but typically, the ones with a higher alpha acid content are used the most. This is to minimize the amount of hops used to get the desired IBU's, thus lowering cost and amount of vegetative matter in your boil kettle. Bittering hops contribute very...

OK, 0.1 gal/ oz hops is something I can work with. That is very helpful, just the sort of info I was hoping for. Thank you.:mug: How did you measure this value? Is that the Cascades / Orange Pale Ale you are planning for your second brew? I have a keg of that right now. It is a very...

They soak up so much wort! I think something like a gallon was lost from my last hoppy IPA. I tried adding extra water to the boil for the next batch, but over compensated and had a lower OG. Does anyone know how much water per ounce of hops they soak up? Is presoaking hops a viable...

Just pitched yeast on a batch of this last night. I used Centennial instead of Cascades, since that is what I had. Also, I used a vegetable peeler to carefully peel off just to orange part of the orange peel from some organic oranges. It took quite a lot to get 2 oz dried. I am looking...

I have a stainless steel IC from nybrewsupply. It works great:ban: I would recommend it, and nybrewsupply, to anyone. The comparison of the thermal coefficients for copper and stainless are pretty much irrelevant in determining the effectiveness of each type of chiller. The stainless works...

Thats another benefit of the low rpm of this motor, it will keep the wear and tear to a minimum. I plan to install a large hopper bin so that I can 'set it and forget it,' having the mill crush grain while I am doing other tasks.

Well, after thinking about it, I realized that the motor brake uses an electromagnet to continuously keep a spring loaded braking mechanism from preventing the motor from turning. After realizing this, it seemed clear that the electromagnet would not really care which way it was wired up, so I...