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You have the same unit as me. I boil with the 2500W elements. Sometimes I might start a 2 or 3 hour Barley Wine boil using the 3000W elements because I’ve got 35L boiling away. But after a while I back it off to the 2500W elements. I’ve never boiled with all the elements running, that’s too...

Did you use the bottom screen/filter? I get a huge hot break and trub cone at the end of boil on my bottom screen. Nothing much settles under that onto the bottom of the unit. So I’ve never seen any scorching. I also never use any mechanical cleaning. I only use PBW, soaked for a couple of hours...

Sorry to hear about your frustrating brew day. It does seem to be an American thing to run these really tight mill gaps, because I keep reading these same stories over and over again. In my BrewZilla 65 I use a 1.1mm mill gap. I get mid/high 80% efficiency for my small ABV beers, easy mashing...

The closed transfer kit is one of the most vital bits of gear I have for making the beer I do. I guess it’s all relative, but I thought $80 was good value for what it allows you to achieve.

I’m going to use either of these two sugars alongside some D180 syrup in my next Belgian Dark Strong Ale. I haven’t compared these before, and guess they will be very similar. The Rock comes in a darker grade than the Soft. Can anyone shed some light on the differences, if any, I’ll achieve...

When considering multi year old Belgians, Imperial Stouts, Barley Wines, etc there’s no doubt that bottle conditioning, which essentially means ageing and bottle carbonating on yeast, produces some of the finest beers on the planet. I wasn’t aware that this fact was even in debate.

I soaked 50g of bourbon barrel cubes in bourbon for a week, and then added them to a keg of 13% barley wine. They’ll sit in there 3 months and then I’ll bottle. I make a lot of Belgian dark strongs, haven’t wooded those before, but I’m sure it will turn out great.

That would be the reason your mash temps are too cool. Your mill is too tight. Open up the gap for a better crush, then you’ll get a good flow through your mash, your mash temp will be what you want and you’ll get a good sparge and no blocked pump. Crushing so fine with all in ones has no...

I’ve noticed a lot of people use exceedingly tight mill gaps. I thought I was missing something and tried reducing my gap. All I got was worse efficiency and a couple of pump blockages. I’m locked in at 1.2mm and my crush looks great. I don’t need rice hulls at all, get great sparges and...

In Settings, what have you got the hysteresis set at? I leave mine set to 0.2C and in cooling only mode. Never had any trouble that you report.

I found some tube that fits snuggly over the sampling valve, it’s about 11mm or 12mm ID. Then I used a step down fitting to connect it to my 6mm ID beer line.

I ended up with 23L in the fermenter. OG was 1.110 and the Mangrove Jack M42 got it to FG 1.021 in 5 days, so that’s 13% ABV. I mashed at 64C, which is a couple of C cooler than I’ve been mashing my RIS and I got about 4 points lower FG than I normally would. Something I might consider for my...

Mash efficiency

You may surprise yourself. My first all grain was a IIPA and is still one of the best beers I’ve made and it went very well in competition. I do have the 65L. I couldn’t make beer in the 35L as I already struggle with the 65. I don’t see any downside to just getting the 65 as it’s so much more...

The best commercial Imperial Stouts I’ve had were in the 11% to 14% range. That’s why I’ve tended to aim in that range. My 10% RIS was the least favourite one I’ve done, while my 14% example won best RIS of show. Interesting to see everyone aiming for lower levels than that. It’s a good point...

I do a lot of Imperial Stouts and Barley Wines, and have fallen into the habit of just aiming for 12% ABV. Though in the past it’s been anywhere from 10% to 16%. Just curious what range others aim for, and if you think there’s a sweet spot that produces the best beers.

Thinking about the hops, I’ll need almost 200g of EKG for bittering. Rather than put them in my hop basket all at once, I guess I could put in 100g for 60 minutes then replace with a fresh 100g for another 60 minutes to get best utilisation.

I usually just use high alpha hops for bittering, but I have read this before about using noble hops instead. I will consider that. I’ve done a Barley Wine before with a 180 minute boil and really liked the result, so I’ll do that again. Last time I was given some HA-18 yeast to try and it...

I’m always looking for good ideas. Is invert sugar anything like the Candi Syrup’s? I use all those in various beers.

Yes I really like my Weyermann Munich II. I make two beers that don’t use it, everything else gets varying amounts.