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As far as the fermenting process, I pretty much only take hydrometer readings before I bottle, just so that I can calculate ABV and see if my recipe turned out as planned. Sometimes I'll do a hydro when transferring to the secondary. It's easy enough, so why not? Other than that, I never really...

going to cook again in a few days and i have some ideas for the chiller. right now, i throttle the wort flow using the ball valve on my kettle. the flow isn't great enough to completely fill the line, so i think it just tricklesalong the bottom part of the line and doesn't have total contact...

your hops look fantastic! aside from the obvious use of having fresh hops on hand for your brews, it looks so aesthetically pleasing. most hop gardens are fully functional, but look a little out of place in the backyard. how much would you say you yield per year in terms of pounds of dried hops?

sent as i was typing my response :p

i am sensing a wave of experienced people about to comment and tell you to be more patient. btw, when this happens to me, it's always because my carboy cap/air lock aren't sealed.

ummmm, you could use a rotary evaporater. really the only way to remove the water is either by heating it up or lowering the pressure (providing a vacuum) or some combination of the two. using the slow random evaporating process that occurs at room temperature is just begging problems with mold...

Those are pretty high temps IMO. If you're shooting for a slight fruitiness, you're better of hovering around the top end of the fermentation range for your yeast, not 10 degrees over it. I don't like fruity, banana, bubble gum flavors in my beers though, so I try to avoid high temps. As far...

I've had the problem with those caps seeming not to be sealed too. I can often rotate the caps. Usually after they start carbonating a little I can't spin them anymore and I've never had a problem with a bottle not holding pressure. BTW, I also use the Super Agata. Not sure what to say about the...

The secret to getting people off of the BMC is Arrogant Bastard. First, you have to let them know that at first taste they aren't going to like it. They need to finish it though because you spent some decent coin on it and promise them it gets better. 22 oz later, they'll have a slight buzz and...

When I decided to go AG, I bought a cooler to convert into a mash tun. I had a junky old igloo in the garage so I just threw a valve on it and called it a hot liquor tank. I've never done a batch sparge. From the sounds of it, neither produces a better brew than the other. It's all about time...

rubbermaid 10 gallon cooler converted to mash tun w/ a copper manifold, hot liquor tank is just a random cooler I threw a ball valve on, 32 qt ss kettle with ball valve, homemade counterflow wort chiller and pre-chiller, couple ported better bottles. nothing special, but it sure gets the job...

I guess I thought that since you were trying to increase your efficiency, you were already fly sparging. Well then, I suggest you shift your operation to fly sparging to up your efficiency percentage.

It's just shy of 20 ft. Ice bucket isn't insulated, but I was agitating it. Agitating makes a huge difference. Maybe a little dry ice in my ice bucket will help. We'll see in a couple weeks.

I feel like I'm missing part of the story. How come you can't add your priming sugar to your bucket? Powdered sugar has other stuff added to it, so I wouldn't use it. How sanitary the sugar is isn't a huge concern, because you should mix it with water and boil it to sanitize it anyway.

Wow, 5-10 minutes is way too fast. As far as I know, the slower the better (more efficient) with diminishing returns after an hour or so. I usually shoot for an hour. I'll use a pint glass to time the flow rate coming out and make adjustments. I'm sure there are fancy reasons to go faster or...

Hmmm, that makes sense. Yeah, it's definitely counterflowing. Maybe I just need to freeze more giant bowls of ice. Maybe I need to move somewhere with lower taxes and colder tap water--emphasis on cold tap water.

Used my new counterflow wort chiller last night. It worked pretty good, but not well enough to make me totally satisfied. Even using the prechiller, I had to really throttle the wort flow in order to get it cool. Flow was throttled so much that it took about 30 minutes to cool a 5 gallon batch...