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I mostly do BIAB 2.5 to 3.5 gallon batches on my gas stove top. I made a Reflectix wrap for my kettle a few years ago, and while it did help a little, I eventually scrapped it. Now, I just cover the kettle with a large towel and stir the mash a few times (about every 10 minutes during a 45...

+1 for Cholaca, that's good stuff. If you want to do a poor man's version of it, you can emulsify your own raw cacao powder to get very similar results.

Same. In fact I used to rehydrate religiously because that's what I was told was best. Since I have started pitching it dry, there has been no difference in attenuation or beer quality.

@fatsputin, it may be worth getting your water tested just to get you going. As @BrewnWKopperKat said, it’s not too complicated…at least not with knowledge of your source water and the use of some software (Bru’n Water for one). If you can get a water report from your municipality (assuming...

Double crushing your grains should be good enough. Maybe start out with stirring a couple of more times during the mash. A longer mash certainly won't hurt, but I do 45 minutes and have no issues (granted, I also treat my water which helps). See how much these things help for your next batch...

Sounds like you are getting there. Another thing you could do in addition to what @marc1 suggested (a finer crush) is to stir the mash about every 10 to 15 minutes. As a bonus at this time, you can also check that your mash temp is still on point. If it's too low, apply heat while stirring...

What software are you using?

The profiles are basically master “templates” that you can attach to a recipe. Changing a profile will not change a recipe for the reason @duncan.brown mentioned above (that would really be a mess if it did). You can however edit the profile in the recipe. There should be a little edit button...

Yes, I should have mentioned that you don’t have to heat the sparge water. I mainly suggest it to help speed up the boiling process. Cheers.

FYI, if you used the colander option above, you could actually mash with 3 gallons and sparge with closer to 1 gallon.

With a 4 gallon kettle, you would definitely have no choice but to hold back some water for either sparging or for kettle top up after mashing. To make things simple, you could mash with 2 gallons which would still leave you plenty of room in the kettle, even for higher gravity brews. You could...

This probably won't quite explain the whole issue, but always put the bag in the kettle of strike water and stir in your grains. If you added them to the bag and then lowered the bag in, you most likely had a lot of clumping going on, preventing a lot of the grain from being exposed to the water...

I've used Beersmith for a few years now and it has never let me down. About a year or so ago, I decided to give Brewfather a spin. For mobile users, Brewfather is definitely better, IMO, but I just can't let go of the PC version of Beersmith. For me, creating and tweaking recipes in Beersmith's...

Count me in!

Interesting. I ordered those exact same ones and the threads were different than the elbows I bought from Lowes. Maybe my local Lowes has a slightly different elbow than yours.

Happen to have a link for that specific spigot? The one I have been using came with my bottling bucket, but it's getting a bit worn and I have am having a hard time finding one with the right threads. I bought two different ones from Amazon, but the threads were a bit to fine for the PVC elbow.

My advice would be to give it more time…like a couple of months. I had issues with the first few imperial stouts I brewed. One batch I gave up on and dumped. The second one, I was frustrated and nearly gave up, but decided to hide it away and try to forget about it. It had little to no...

Yeah, I have researched them quite a bit over the past couple of years...cost and installation are not stopping me. The main thing that I am concerned about it the amount of waste water from them. I'm on a well, and after the neighbor's well across the street dried up and he informed me that...

Sadly, the WM near me doesn't carry RO water. I mostly use my well water run through a charcoal filter, but for lighter brews, I sometimes will cut it with distilled.

If I had the luxury of an RO system, I'd be using strictly RO water and building my profile from there.