Recent content by Willglenn

Faster reaching temps and a much improved boil, on 120 the boil was a bit week.

I used my 10.5 on 120 for quite a while it works but it works a lot better after switching to 240. Simple to do and worth the effort.

Definitely gotta switch it over to 240v.

Gentlemen, I submit for your approval, my new 6.5 gallon Foundry. I bought this one to use as a hot liquor tank but am now thinking about using it to brew some small test batches for bottling. I have the 10.5 Foundry but was not happy with the brew in a bag aspect of it. My efficiency was...

You assumed correctly, astringency.

Every time I do it I swear I'll never do it again. I just don't like 30 minute hop additions even 20 minute additions do it, by do it I mean give a harsh flavor and bitterness, think tannins. I usually stick to all of the bittering hops go in at 60 minutes and no further additions until the 5...

My first Oktoberfest

The Foundry is basically a brew in a bag system minus the bag. So yes it uses way more water than a traditional mash which makes checking your Ph a little more important.

I finally ran 240v to my brewing area. I ran a test boil starting with 5 gallons of 65F water, 30 minutes to 170F and 45 minutes to a wild rolling boil. I cut the power back to 90% which gave me a nice rolling boil, I let it go for an hour to check my boil off rate. huge improvement over 120v.

I’ve thought about getting a 6.5 AF for a hot liquor tank. Right now I heat my mash water and then heat my sparge water while mashing. Which means I have to transfer the sparge water to an additional container so I can run off into the 10.5 AF.

Finally, I hit 74% efficiency! Been stuck at around 60% using the Anvil malt pipe so I quit using it and went back to my cooler mash tun using the Anvil to heat strike water and boil. First attempt didn't go as well as I had hoped, didn't gang much but I learned a few things, todays brew I...

All of my AF beers have finished low, around 1.004 which leads me to believe the temperature control is not very accurate. I brewed yesterday using the AF as an HLT to heat strike water and then mash in my old cooler mash tun, the AF temp ran 3 degrees cooler than what my digital thermometer...

I think the low efficiency is due to the tall narrow kettle design, my old boil kettle was a 13 gallon stainless pot short and wide I boiled off 1.75 gallons in one hour, my AF boils off .5 gallons in an hour running on 120v ( I wish I could do 220 just not an option in my current setup). More...

After 6 beers with abysmal mash efficiency I've decided to break out my old mash tun. I've tried all of the easy stuff and am not interested in milling my grist to dust requiring a bag to keep the mud and hulls out of the brew kettle. My current crush is leaving far to much grain in the boil. I...

Note that the recipe calls for Whole Hops, this accounts for some of the difference but not all.