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Good call - I think used tubing will all get tossed, and likely the bottling wand, and at least the bottling bucket valve - I took it off and soaked it in pbw, but it looked grimy and appeared like it hadn't been removed in a while. I'll look closer at the buckets for scratches, although I...

Thanks for the advice. It's actually a 10gal cooler with ball valve and false bottom, and the kettle is either 10 or 12gal and thick aluminum walls, nicer than my old 8gal for sure.

My instinct is to go ahead and use it all. After all the guy did sell me the stuff for a cheap price, and I think he knew that he was practically giving it away. I've never used the IO sanitizer, but now that I have a full bottle of it, I should probably figure out a way to use it. No sense...

Yup, $100 total and I was pretty stoked. There's tons of random stuff that you can't see in the pictures too like strainers, hydrometers, probably 15 airlocks and different size stoppers, etc. I got it for the mash tun though since I only had a makeshift one that I did PMs with. I did throw...

I recently picked up this lot off Craigslist for $100. It came with what you can see plus a bottle drying tree and a couple of other things. My question is about the chemicals. It's got a half used bottle of starsan, open PBW, and a full sealed bottle of IO sanitizer. Do you all feel comfortable...

Well, this brew day finally happened yesterday. The yeast packs were 2 months old so hopefully we get some interesting beer. Due to a miscalculation, we mashed too much grain by a fair amount so we ended up with 13 gallons of Flanders Red. 5 gallons with De Bom, 5 with Oud Bruin, and 3 with...

I recently had a stout in primary, a plastic carboy, and it fermented out quite quickly. Airlock activity dropped to nearly nothing and I was going to bottle after another week or so. Things got cold outside so we had a few fires in the fireplace which is in the next room over from where my...

Good question, I did one gallon of sour mash in a 5 gallon batch, but my boil started at 5.5 or 6 gallons. Update on this beer since I'm drinking one now. I like it, although others that have tried it haven't been as excited about it. They are very over carbonated too so I'm worried about...

It's definitely a pickle jar as someone else mentioned. I have a different 2.5 gallon jar that would have originally held pickles and plan to use it for small batches or partial sour mashes. The original lid would've been thin metal similar to modern canning jar caps, but roughly 5 inches...

What kit did you use? Which yeast? 4-7 days in primary seems short to me. I personally would just leave it in the primary for 2-3 weeks depending on how big of a beer it is. Make sure your airlock/bung/bucket lid is on tight. It is unlikely that the airlock should stop bubbling after 24...

I got 3 kits as well. The SMASH, the American Wheat, and the Irish Red. I'm going to use the Gold LME from the Irish Red with the Simcoe hops from the SMASH and do a Simcoe IPA (will use 1 oz more Simcoe than came with the kit). I'll use the Pilsen LME from the SMASH and 1 oz more of the...

Wyeast had a couple blends. I have a pack of De Bom and Oud Bruin in my fridge now. There are some posts in here about those blends, but supposedly they work well, and fast (like 2 months). I'll be brewing them both within a couple of weeks so I'll find out first hand!

Another update. I cracked open a bomber last night and it's getting really good. The intense special B flavor is melding with the rest of the flavors and allowing the tartness to come through. I'm going to have to hide a few bottles in the back of the closet for long term aging before they...

I did exactly this a couple of months ago in an Oud Bruin recipe. I only soured a portion of the wort. I made up an extract wort on the stove one night and pitched in some 2-row for the lacto after cooling to about 115. I held that temperature for 3 days, then brewed as normal, adding in the...

A couple sour blends require 80-85

Update - I brewed this beer with a couple of modifications yesterday. It was my first all grain so I decided that I didn't want to wait for the sour bugs before drinking. I up'ed the hops to 1 oz Fuggle and used 1968 yeast based on a recommendation. Assuming this comes out well, I'll brew it...

I've settled on a recipe and will hopefully be brewing this beer within the week. My question is now about fermentation temperatures. I do not have a chamber yet (I'm working on that), but have a couple of options. Right now I have a room at a steady 67, and one at about 70 or 71. These...

I just did this same thing on Sunday. Got a gallon of "fresh cider" from a local orchard. I dumped it into a 1 gallon glass carboy and added about 1/3 packet of dry ale yeast. Only then did I realize that the cider had sorbate in it which inhibits the yeast. I added the rest of the yeast...

Update! This beer fermented strong at between 67-69 degrees. It had developed some very large bubbles at about 2 weeks that were probably 1 1/2 inches around and scared me into thinking it was infected. I let it sit another week and they started to go away. Lots of yeast rafts remained. So...

Thanks. My brew pot is 8 gallons so I'll have to see if it fits in the oven, otherwise I'll just figure out a different way to maintain the temperature.