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Yes, I tried that. I even called the city to talk to water guy about it. I think it helped my results a little compared to doing nothing at all, but nothing has been as clean as RO, so it's hard to go back. Oh well, I may very well end up revisiting the tap water idea due to the exceptional...

I jumped right into all-grain with fermentation temperature control, so I don't have any before/after experience on those things. Easily the 2 biggest "process" improvements for me have been: - switching from tap water to RO water + salts - reduced O2 on cold side (mostly by purging kegs and...

I'm in the same boat. I have grains, hops, and yeast on hand but I'm currently quarantined and just can't bring myself to roll the dice with tap water. Family and friends have been great helping us out with groceries and essentials, but I'm not about to ask my sister to lug 3 jugs of water...

You didn't really specify what you might use the chiller for, other than "cold side temperature control," but if it's really just fermentation temperature control you're talking about then there are other ways of addressing that. There is, however, only one antidote for the bottling blues and...

Dough balls while mashing in are such a pain. Mashing in used to be such a drag for this reason; I'd have to pour a bit of grain in, stir, pour a bit more in, stir, and so on. What I do now is have my kettle raised up a bit and put my Igloo cooler mash tun on the ground, so I can gravity drain...

Can anybody elaborate on what makes the valve “useless?”

I can drink a simple beer (blonde ale, etc.) out of a can if I'm camping, but yeah, drinking most kinds of good beer right from its container is a travesty, IMO. Especially on IPAs and aroma-heavy beers. Some people really seem to underestimate the role your nose plays in "tasting" beer...

I have a feeling that the "certain doom" portended by small scratches in plastic fermentors is one of those things that everybody just accepts as true because they read about it on a forum, but they don't have any direct evidence or experience. I've pre-emptively de-commissioned more than one...

Outstanding! Thanks for sharing a play-by-play. And I know exactly what you mean by "reinvigorated passion." Having semi-recently seen the benefits of oxygen avoidance on hoppy beers myself, I too went through a major spike in enthusiasm for the last few months. So many things I want to...

I've been using good ol' plastic buckets since I started brewing 5 years ago, and now I'm considering an upgrade. Here's the thing, though; I really like the plastic buckets because they're dirt cheap (read: replaceable), dead simple to clean (literally, 2 minutes), two of them fit comfortably...

The most mango-like flavor I've got in my homebrew, hands down, has been from whirlpooling Mosaic and Citra together at around 170F. This combo was so evocative of mango for me that I renamed the beer "mango pale ale" after the fact, to help guests get a feel for what to expect. I've also...

What I would do... For grains: 2-row Munich Crystal 60L Chocolate Go all 2-row for basic beers or to generally minimize malt character. Add it some Munich if some additional malty complexity is desired. Use crystal in small amounts (1-2%) for a bit of color, and in larger amounts (8-12%)...

If you're uncomfortable with the long stay in primary, just rack it to a keg on Friday. While doing so, check the gravity. If it's within a few (4ish) points of your expected FG, seal up the keg, put it away, and you'll come home to nicely carbonated beer. If you check the gravity and it's...

If you use anything more than a half cup of sugar for 5gal, store the bottles near room temperature, and still end up with flat beer, then something is amiss. The most obvious answer would be that your bottles aren't holding pressure. I had this problem once with brown 500ml PET bottles with...

I don't make much of a fuss at all about cleaning my mash tun (Igloo cooler) or boil kettle. Just dump leftover contents, a quick wipe with a towel to loosen any stubborn bits of grain/hops, and a blast from the hose and it's done. The one area where I do pay pretty close attention is on the...

I think you may just have to face it, you're a Smirnoff Ice guy. You have my condolences.

That's an interesting possible explanation I hadn't considered. Funny thing about that though, is on the case of this where I got the Belgian character after pitching a new packet of S05. For that one, I indeed lost control of fermentation temperature for a short time during the growth phase...

I'm in the camp of kegging after 7-10 days, pending availability of free time to do it. My standard used to be 14-21 days, but based on 10-12 batches using the shortened schedule I see no downside to it, so I go with it. No cold crashing for me - I don't want to risk sucking in oxygen and I...

Leaking kegs suck. Yesterday I looked in my keg cooler and there was about 2-3 pints' worth of cascade/centennial pale ale on the floor. Pain in the ass! Smelled great in there, though. Turns out, the liquid post on that keg was loose. I torqued it down, pressurized the keg, and monitored...

My typical practice is to keg after 7-10 days for most beers. Bigger beers and/or sluggish yeast strains might push it out to 14-16 days, but that's rare for me. By the way, I should mention that getting the beer pouring more quickly usually has nothing to do with why I favor a shorter stay...