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Please enter me into this contest! Finally went ahead and became a supporting member after years of visiting. I pulled the big trigger and went lifetime because this place has helped me immensely over the years. Thanks, TxBrew, for running these forums. Before I got into the game industry...

Everyone has different taste thresholds. If you felt 4 oz on a 19 lb grain bill was too present, the roasted malt probably won't mask it enough to make it a subtle flavor addition. Start even lower. Go with 2 oz. I always start low with specialty grains and will increase the amount the next...

Generally less than 5% of the grain bill. I'd start out with 4-6 oz for a normal dry stout gravity range.

Gonna download this and use it next brew day. Thanks!

Yes. I put special roast in a dry stout and it is my secret sauce for that recipe.

Thanks for the link. I actually took a look at Kai's post and I might up going with the updated version of what he picked up at some point. For now, I picked up a $31 one on Amazon (Hanna 98103B) to see if it works. If it doesn't, I'll upgrade, but I wanted to get a refractometer as well because...

I'm shopping around for a pH meter and preferably would like to spend less than $100 on it (including storage and calibration solutions). I keep reading terrible things about every pH meter on the market so I can't seem to trust the interwebs, so I thought I'd come here for some real...

I'm considering getting one of these but I'm a total noob at dealing with electrical wiring. I was looking at the manufacturer's website and was wondering why you guys didn't mimic their diagram. http://www.protectedhome.com/documents/TC9102DHV%20120%20VAC%20Wiring%20Diagram.pdf Any other...

Thanks much to both of you again. If I continue to get poor efficiency after trying pickling lime (I do have a scale that can measure to 0.01 grams), I'll try the opposite direction. Maybe someone at RIFT (my local homebrew club) has a pH meter and will be willing to come to my next brew day.

The water pH as reported by my local water supplier is actually 5.7, which corroborates what I see when measuring tap water at room temperature (a colorpHast measurement of ~5.5 + 0.3 systematic error). My water is very soft (everything in it is quite low) with a crazy low pH and alkalinity...

ajdelange: My water is very soft. It measures at ~5.5 pH with colorpHast strips at room temperature. If Braukaiser is correct that those strips have a systematic error of 0.3, my water starts at 5.8 pH. I've measured with two other (cheaper) strips with pretty much the same results. My terrible...

I went down the same road of removing calcium from the mash, but you actually still want around 50 PPM in the mash itself for alpha-amylase stability and mash efficiency, so if you have too little calcium, you're also causing problems for yourself. I'm going to try calcium hydroxide (pickling...

I ended up investigating a bunch of stuff related to bitterness and chartified most of this data... http://www.madalchemist.com/relative_bitterness.html The Google doc with the style data is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ai1Yv492QZYUdFN1YWpYZTFxUm1reWN2WEx2a0xpUkE#gid=0

Consistency is king.

Check them all against boiling water. If one of them says 212, it's correct. Use that one. Never use the others. I had the same problem as you until I did exactly what I said above and now I only ever use my Blichmann Brewmometer. Getting used to one thermometer means consistent results.

Coors is primarily better than Bud because they are not detrimental to the beer industry. If you've never seen this documentary and support the craft beer industry, watch Beer Wars. http://beerwarsmovie.com/trailer/large/

Denny Conn linked the info over on the AHA forums. I'm mirroring it here since some people aren't AHA members and can't post over there. Summary: All attempts to accurately quantify beer balance objectively before brewing will fail because of the many contributing factors. For example, grain...

Ha! Well, you're looking at a 20%+ gap there. Relative Bitterness Ratio (RBR) numbers are very similar to BU:GU in that 0.5 is roughly balanced between sweet and bitter. (On average) The sweetest-balanced beer style is Fruit Lambic at 0.113 RBR. The most bitter is the Imperial IPA at 1.135...

Oh, no not at all. Apparent Attenuation is highly dependent on mash temps. I must have misunderstood your comment entirely if I led you to believe that.

I've found that I can fairly accurately predict my apparent attenuation before brewing based on a combination of knowing my equipment, changing my mash temperature (higher temperature means less attenuation, lower temperature means more attenuation), and choosing yeast with attenuation in mind...