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No. Cleaners clean and sanitizers sanitize. If you want to roll the dice and expose your wort or beer to such an environment it might be OK but why take the risk? Alcohol is not nearly as effective as Star-San, Iodophor, or other product specifically designed for sanitizing surfaces/equipment...

I don't know if there is any standard formula out there for this. The first thing I'd do is look at the ratio of OG to IBU. The ABV is being reduced by 25-30%, start by doing the same thing with the IBUs. If you want more malt flavor bring the IBUs down a little more. It might take a bit of...

Protos, in my experience all of the European malts have more flavor than North American malts. VikeMan has given good information on color. I think Weyerman pale malt, most any pilsner malt, or a UK lager malt would be acceptable substitutes as long as you don't mind have a little extra flavor.

I wouldn't skip the heating. This not only helps create a uniform, smooth solution it also pasteurizes the gelatin mix. Personally I don't want to take a chance of dumping some random bacteria in my beer.

How did you prepare it? Gelatin needs to be bloomed first in cold water, then heated until it clears and is fully dissolved.

The malting process is instrumental in reducing the starches in grain to fermentable sugar through the activation of enzymes which carry on this process. Without malting you have starch only which is not digestible by beer yeast. Commercially extracted malt in dry or syrup form is available for...

I'm with Dave on this one. It's the malt, real German malt. I've gotten the flavor in some homebrews and tasted the subtle white grapiness in several German commercial brews. While my evidence is only anecdotal I say that pilsner malt is the most likely culprit. All the beers with it had...

That pH isn't high, it's just about neutral. Follow marc1's advice and read up on the water info in the HBT Brew Science section of the forum. Again, the pH of the water is not of particular importance it is the composition of the water which determines direction you need to take. Two water...

Pilsner malt only and make sure it's a good German malt. I prefer decoction but that's your decision. I always find it quiet interesting that Mr Z and others who for the most part rally against decoction mashes often recommend using specialty malts like Melanoidin which are championed as...

Honestly, brew something else until you have enough UK pale malt to do the job. The grist bill is way over complicated. These are simple beers and should have the big malt flavor provided by solid base of good UK pale malt. You've got a patchwork quilt of a beer there. It may wind up being...

The grits are "enriched" with vitamins and extra nutrients like many home cereal grocery products. It's not a big deal for using them in brewing. Quick grits are partially pre-cooked so they have also been gelantinized which lets you just mix them into the mash with no worries.

I do a short boil, ~10 minutes, to create a hot break to keep that material out of the run. Most don't.

You can get by brewing a lot of beers by the seat of your pants, I'm not sure a pilsner is one of them. Czech pils use Czech hops, Saaz in particular, and Urquell has IBUs of 40 or so. Hallertau will do just fine for a German or general Euro pils. Leave the Columbus hops in the freezer, they...

I would consider sucking it up and use all low-alpha UK noble hops here. EKG is great and my favorite but Fuggles and WGV are excellent choices as well. You also might want to try a much longer than normal boil time, say 120 minutes, and layer the hops in multiple additions. The long boil will...

Questions: What is your target OG? What is the style (English or US)? What are the hops and schedule? What is the yeast? Assuming this might be English style based on the MO pale malt I'd say the Munich and dextrose are superfluous. The MO doesn't really need any help in the malt department...

In all deference to Charlie Papazian as one of the founding fathers of American homebrewing I'd much prefer a Maibock heavy on Vienna malt and eliminate those late and dry hop additions. If you need sauer malt for your pH adjustment then by all means use it, otherwise ditch it. Keep the 60...

Just curious, does your water source get a lot of winter runoff from salted highways? Cl-2 at 84 with those others at very low numbers indicates that possibility. What is your Na+2 number? For a pale ale, IPA, and such I'd add gypsum to raise your Ca+2 and SO4-2 to where you want them to be...

I didn't mean to imply anything like a 200ppm SO4 content but twice as much SO4 as Cl is what a 2:1 ratio gives you. FWIW I'd shoot for 60/75ppm Cl and keep the SO4 no more than 20/25ppm.

Hoppy does not equate with high SO4 content in a lager. Sulphate doesn't make a beer hoppy. It somewhat sharpens the taste perception but isn't going to change the IBUs. Very hoppy lagers such as Pilsner Urquell and most German pils are not high in sulphates. The exception is a Dortmunder which...

As Bobby_M said already, the pH alone doesn't tell you much if anything as to what is actually in the water. You can have two water supplies with the same pH and they could have vastly different ion content and makeup. It is the pH of the mash which is of primary importance to brewing. Once you...