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Buy yourself a 2-body secondary regulator http://www.kegconnection.com/2-body-secondary-regulator-choose-taprite-or-chudnow/ (or more bodies, if you'll ever want to expand). Keep the 5G tank as part of your portable set-up and as back-up for when the 10G unexpectedly runs out.

Normally people raise the temperature during ale fermentation (keeping it coolest for the initial hot rush, warming as things slow down towards the end to help the yeast with any clean-up).

I'm not sure of the exact number, but certainly above 212F. They're fine for boiling wort (in fact, that helps sterilize them - just a quick roll once they're full and you're golden). As noted above, using the 8G kettle for a dunk sparge makes 10G BIAB a breeze; a hoist really helps with...

Since, like me, you're in drought-stricken California (one average year's snow notwithstanding), you might want to consider going no-chill to save all the immersion chiller water. These containers http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=31615&catid=459 are the best I've found. You can...

I started a thread a while back on what to put on 4 taps for an event https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=511825 Obviously it depends on whether you can swap new kegs in as old ones run dry. I've found that in most of the crowds I've served to the IPA/APA drains twice as quickly as...

Brewer's Friend also has a water calculator built in for every recipe - check under the Recipe Tools tab. You do need to set your equipment profile (under My Profile from the My Brewing tab).

Your methodology is a bit wonky. For this recipe you would - heat 9 gallons of water to 155F - put the bag in the pot and add the crushed grains, stirring as you go to prevent dough balls - insulate and leave for an hour (it should be around 150F at this point) - remove the bag and drain/squeeze...

One analysis I've read suggests that the overwhelming dominance of lagers in the US market traces to the post-prohibition goal of getting beer back into homes, which meant appealing to the (primarily) women who would be buying it. Whether through market research or assumption, this drove...

This was the menu for Monday's event with the full keezer and 150 cosmologists - Centennial Blonde, and tweaked clones of London Pride, Drake's 1500 and Bell's Two-Hearted Ale. The SPT ran out first, soon followed by the POLARBEAR, with the BICEP and ACT fairly close behind. I was somewhat...

Pliny the Elder is available at a reasonable selection of liquor stores around the Bay Area, though it is only delivered once a week and generally sold out the same day. Dogfish Head 60 and 90 Minute are widely available too, but 120 is a harder find. Heady Topper is nowhere to be found.

If you're concerned about over-attenuation, wouldn't you mash warmer to get more unfermentable sugars?

When you say it's almost empty, is that from reading the gauge - which is almost useless - or from not being able to dispense any more beer?

True for beer, but since we were talking about the wort correction factor I took the "wort" to be understood.

It's really not that complicated! Next time you measure a gravity, do it with both and take the ratio hydrometer reading/refractometer reading which will be very close to 1. Then whenever you take a refractometer reading, multiply it by this number (or use a calculator, like the...

Exactly - refractometers are (typically) calibrated with sugar water, and wort has a slightly different refractive index.

Yeah - just calibrate your refractometer against your hydrometer, taking the latter to be the correct reading. Mine comes out at 1.04 for a 1.050-ish wort.

No - the OG is sufficient. See for example http://www.brewersfriend.com/refractometer-calculator/

I'm another refractometer user. Sure, you have to correct for alcohol post fermentation, but there are plenty of calculators out there. The big upside for me is only needing a drop of beer rather than half a pint. That said, I do still have a hydrometer on hand in case something seems really...

Thanks AJ. Had it not been for the middle batch I would simply have dismissed it as bad readings. I agree that something must be off, but it's very odd.