Recent content by twos_and_zeros

Second vote for the IC3500. I've only used it a few times, but it can handle the weight of a heavy pot plus nearly 10 gallons of wort and bring it to a boil decently quickly. Last time I used it I got 8 gallons to strike temp in just over 30 minutes, which I was happy with. The instructions...

Are the refills from Mr Beer? It looks like they're pre-hopped extract kits, so it would be very easy to mix a few kits across multiple pots (or one pot a few times) on your stovetop. I'm making an assumption that you want to combine multiple kits (looks like 2 gallons each?) into a 5 gallon...

Seems to me that the trend lately is to add dry hops for about 2-4 days before packaging in order to maximize the hop flavor without any astringency. And I've read that adding the hops during active fermentation will lose a lot of the hop aroma.

I only recently started brewing, so I have very little experience to draw upon. Take what I say with a massive grain of salt. I agree the calculators can appear very complicated when you first start looking at them. But once you've fiddled around with ingredients for a while they're just as...

I looked up the kit you enjoyed making but want stronger. As far as I can tell they offer no ingredients or quantities included in the kit. Unless you're willing to potentially make some poor quality beers, I wouldn't modify their recipes too much. Adding a bit of DME / LME will up the ABV...

One thing I found helpful for modifying recipes was using an online calculator to see what certain changes would do. Something like Brewer's Friend. You can create a free account, enter as much about the recipe as you know, then add more DME or LME until you hit the ABV you're looking for...

Thanks for all the suggestions! I don't have the ability to keg right now, and I don't think I'll be able to for a while. I just started brewing from a kit my wife got me last Christmas. I didn't realize how much I'd enjoy it (in fact I didn't think I'd enjoy it at all when I opened the kit)...

I have a double IPA (west coast, not NEIPA) in a Spike Flex (not a Flex+).

I should have been clearer: I do have a fermentation chamber (chest freezer with inkbird 308). This is the second batch that I've used it on, and the first one came out so much better than anything I made previously! So I have the ability to cold crash, but I know I shouldn't without being...

I'm about to dry hop an IPA in my fermenter and was wondering about getting the hop material out of suspension faster. I know this would normally be done by cold crashing, but I don't have any way to limit the amount of oxygen sucked in during that (no co2 canister and I didn't fill a balloon...

My last brew day I forgot to put the drain tube into my fermenter. As I was filling it up from the brew kettle, I remembered that I hadn't added it. So, the only thing I could think to do was drain all the wort from the fermenter back into the brew kettle, sanitize the drain tube and insert...