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Ok, well if you're mashing at, for example 146F for an hour and a half, and if your mash water is at a pH of 5.2, then the next step would probably include a decent starter and oxygenated wort.

Yes, it'll be cool to see the results of this experiment. I know that I have my *impressions* about what oxygenation gives us, but it'll be interesting to hear your results. Perry, it all depends on where your sweetness comes from. If it's from dextrins, then there's not much you'll be able...

This kit looks pretty good and you won't have regrets about its capabilities. Sure, you could buy and assemble the parts yourself, and there's really not much to it, but there's something to be said about the convenience of getting everything from the same place, and at the same time, knowing...

HERMS is truly great. We use an immersion chiller in the HLT, and we pump the wort through that to achieve our "heated circulation". It's really cool because (if your tubing is clear enough) you can literally see the starch conversion taking place - what was once cloudy, turbid, starchy wort...

It's mostly the threat of infection. Obviously, many people have luck with fermenting in plastic. I just don't want to take the chance. I wasn't seriously criticizing you (or anyone else). To each his/her own. That's what's cool about homebrewing. Your beer, your way.

the rub is - don't ferment in plastic ;).

Yup, I'd recommend investing the $30 for the oxygen kit. You'll notice that your fermentation kicks off much faster! And think about it... You can oxygenate your starters, too. Since the most crucial time is the ramp-up time for the yeast, it's always great to give them as much of a kick...

It was going really, really fast for about 12 hours, but now it has begun to slow down just a touch. It's now sending 1-2 bubbles per second through the airlock, which is nothing to sneeze at!

Hey Everybody! Some of you might've seen a couple of my threads concering different aspects of culturing duvel yeast and getting the most out of our saccarification rests. Well, we brewed yesterday, and I thought we'd share some highlights regarding this very successful session! The culture...

From the experience of trying things both ways, I agree with those people who say that using a starter is the way to go. It's so easy - I mean, you make wort and ferment your beer, right? Well, your starter is a mini-brew, but it's immesurably easier, quicker, and so much easier. Just let the...

In our efforts to produce a duvel clone, a friend has created a starter in which he used the yeast from three duvel bottles. It is showing a litlte activity - some foam and some bubbles in the starter wort. But it seems to be going quite slow. Should we attribute this to the (lack of)...

Don't overlook Beer Tools Pro. They have versions for both Mac and PC, so nobody's left out. It's really well put-together and the staff is very responsive in the forums. They don't have a demo, but it's great stuff. I was going to hold out for a demo, but I bit the bullet and just bought a...

Doesn't DMS boil off with a decent boil?

Personally, I really don't like the taste of Yuengling lager, but I do respect their quality control, and I don't think they'd allow beer with detectable amounts of DMS to leave their brewery. I'm pretty good at detecting the taste of corn in beers, even at lower levels, and Yuengling products...

The recipe is as follows: 18 lbs pils (2 row) 3.8 lbs "sugar" (i'll explain below) hops yeast cultured from duvel bottles We aren't sure about the sugar that we'll specifically be using. I've created homemade "invert" sugar before by boiling table sugar with a certain amount of citric acid...

The other thread was specific about cloning Duvel, but I was trying to get more info about the amount of "processing" a particular grain went through vs. how you mash, so that's why I started this thread. I was also a bit unclear about doing a protein rest on a fully modified malt.

I respect anybody's preferences in brewing, but the data suggests that a temperature of 149F results in a pretty equal balance of fermentables and dextrines. My friend and I will be attempting to clone Duvel, which will consist entirely of Pilsner malt. I believe that we may need to spend more...

Kaiser, Is it important to point out to Brew-boy (like you pointed out to me) that another consideration for a step mash is whether or not you want to fine-tune your saccharification rests?

I already use pH stabilizer for my mash and sparge, and my homebrew shop doesn't grind their grains particularly finely, but my friends and I have been getting at least 75% efficiency every time which is fairly decent. I attribute this to accuracy in temperature, and ensuring that we get a 170...

Ok, there's a lot more going on with a complex mash schedule than some people might think. Most importantly, no matter if your malt is fully modified or not very modified, you can tune your beta amylase rest(s) and your alpha amylase rest(s). This is what determines fermentability versus body...