Search results

Yeah for 5 gallon batches you need 7-8 gallon for headspace for fermentation and losses as explained above. Otherwise a mess will ensue, trust me.

Probably fermentation from the cranberries. Can happen a lot with fruit beers.

I have my own mill and have always crushed my own grains so don’t think that is it. I have a hydrometer to measure and also have a tilt so actually used both and they were close to each other. Temp seemed fine. I am ready temp as it enters the top of the mash tun. I also a, reading it as it...

SO i have a couple threads going on my new setup but looking for some more eyes on my issues as I just had a pretty disasterous brew day. Been brewing for 2-3 years. Prior to last 2 days used BIAB propane setup. Never had major issues, efficiency averaged 70-75%. Have a new 2.5 kettle electric...

It sure was lol.

@Bobby_M Thanks for the info. I see what you are saying and a lot of it is making sense. I just have a couple followups. 1. Since I only have a 2 ft hose from the HEX Wort out to MT Wort in, could the probe be put on the MT at the wort in connection? 2. I am assuming I don't care how hot the...

Let me try to explain the temps better. The 180+ was temp in the boil kettle near the heating element. I am reading temps on the outflow from the boil kettle, thats where my temp sensor is, the highest that ever ready was 170. The 180+ I got by using a hand thermometer in the boil kettle. For...

I guess this is where I am confused. I am heating the water in the boil kettle. I can tell you that was quite hot. Probably in the 180+ range. Also the temp on the boil out was showing 10-20 higher than mash temp for awhile till it finally caught up. I am only using 4 gallons in the boil kettle...

I currently have a T off the out on the boil kettle and the Brewcommander temp probe is on that tee. It then goes from there to pump to wort out on the exchanger. I am then using a hand held thermometer to check mash tun temp. I will look at playing with cycle time.

When recirculating the mash through the coil should it be on the slow side like a trickle or a fairly steady to fast speed?

So I am coming from the world of BIAB. I just setup a new electric brewing system and had my first pre day. I had a huge issue with my wort. So I am using a 2 vessel + external herms setup. Using an exhilarator as my herms coil. I got everything up to temp, strike was set to about 160 f. I...

Anyone see this new product yet? Wonder when home brewers are going to get a shot at it.

So I used the brewcommander for the first time the other night. Not nearly as hands off as I was hoping for, especially during the mash. Basically it would never get to the set mash temp. It seems to scale back as it gets close. It would always get within a degree or so and then start falling...

Never heard of weevils, didnt see anything strange. They smelled fine. Not sure if that matters. Interestingly enough if i deleted the portion of the grain bill that matches the amount of old grain my calculator says pre boil would be 1.024 which is exactly what i had, so thinking it could have...

I crushed the grains myself which i always do. Don’t belieave i had any ph issues. I kept an eye on the temps and they seemed fine the entire time. I will say for about 40% of my grain bill I used some 2-3 year old grains but they were in a sealed 5 gallon bucket. However last summer they were...

So I did my first brew day on the new setup last night. Ended up using the exchilerator as an external herms coil based on all the comments here. That worked just fine. One BIG issue I had however was very low pre boil effiency. Was supposed to be 1.041 and end up 1.024. Never had an issue like...

Ok so lots of no’s on k-rims. I got the breaker installed, wooo! So I fired up the system just to try and understand the brew commander a little bit. I decided to try the external herms route so used the exchilerator as a herms coil. I was messing around with different things so didn’t get a...

Thanks its not something I was aware of. I am thinking the process will look like this. 1. heat full volume of water in BK to strike temp. 2. Open valves, start bumps, start circulating from BK to MT, once up to strike temp shut off pumps, heating element and close valves. 3. Fill mash ton...

So is vorlaufing just recirculating in the mash tun prior to sending the wort to the kettle? If so should it be done at a high or low flow rate. I have the riptide pumps so I can set flow to whatever I want. It also looks like that might be the step shown in the video above before he starts his...

Good to know it should work fine. I have two riptide pumps which allow you to set flow rates so hoping i can use these to manually get things flowing correctly. I also plan on using a bag in the mash tun to make clean up easier. I did watch this video and not sure on a couple of the steps he...