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Looking to do a Chocolate Stout soon and I am developing the recipe now. I really want folks to think they are drinking a good quality chocolate bar with a solid stout playing the supporting role. I've already got a pretty solid basic American Stout recipe for a base, it's the chocolate part...

The last IPA I brewed in March was a 5-gallon batch (6.5 gallons into the fermenter); it clocked in at 1.065 OG and for giggles I pitched just one packet of US-05 into it - direct pitch, no rehydration. I had been using 2 packets for similar brews and thought I'd try just one this time - worked...

Wow; great input from multiple angles - exactly what I was looking for. The Helles is still sitting in my unitank on glycol at 37 F as I ride the fence here. Quick note on my thinking process; my first hefe was decocted in a traditional manner, mashed in for a short ferulic acid rest at 113 F...

I certainly could lager it for 4-6 weeks at 33-34 F in the old fermeezer as originally planned, but the concern still is stirring up the sediment when I move the keg over to the kegerator. I could put a line on the keg and push a pint or so out before moving it over to the kegerator - do you...

My first lager, a Helles, is ready to transfer to a keg today, and I am grappling with the urge to put it on line within, say, a week or so as opposed to the typically prescribed lagering period. This is not about me being impatient - I have plenty of tasty brew on tap currently - it's just...

As long as a reliable calculator was used for water adjustments, there should be a feature enabling you to select the option of adding all salts to the mash. While it would look as though you're adding too much for the volume of strike water, remember; the salts are being calculated for the full...

I think Homebrew Supply stores should be declared Essential.

The method I use is to calculate the salts for the total water that actually goes into the beer (mash and sparge volumes added together), and I just add those salts to the MLT. I, too, use an eHERMS (smaller system, though) and I add the prescribed strike volume to the MLT and fill the HLT to...

Good to know, thanks. And now for the $64,000 question; assuming even a low level of carbonation is left in the beer after crashing (I change the blow-off setup to a CO2 setup to maintain around 2 psi while crashing), will I have issues during the transfer to the keg? I'm used to transferring...

Ok, I know; that’s one of the things a unitank is for, but I didn’t actually set out to carbonate yet – need to learn about it and get a spunding valve first, haven’t done that yet. Problem is, I swapped out the ball valve and blow-off hose on my 7-Gallon SSB unitank for a CO2 hookup to put a...

BHE is already 82% for my Kolsch so it is as you say; chasing a few percentage points is not worth the 15 extra minutes of sparge time.

Yeah, my mash efficiency is pretty high but perhaps I am just working too hard to get those high efficiencies when I could instead be relaxing about it a bit more and not worrying so much about getting every possible little bit out of the grain. I think a few extra ounces of grain and a couple...

I’ve been slowly figuring out my 3-vessel eHERMS setup and have been creeping up on finally getting a 60-minute sparge. Tricky getting those valves set just right – have to mess with them a bit, but it’s doable. Question is; is 60 minutes too long? I ask, because the last couple of times I...

I was just looking at the black EPDM TC gaskets for my SS Uni - where are you sourcing these gaskets? I see some on Amazon for around $26 USD for a pack of 10 - EPDM 1.5" TC gaskets. Seems a little higher than silicone but I suppose it's all about where you buy. SS has silicone replacements for...

I wonder; why? This would make useless my initial idea of buying dry yeast in 500g bags. I suppose I could by the sachets in bulk... Hey, wait a minute... now that I think about it; I've been using the same batch of dry yeast for bread making for over 3 years - it just sits in an airtight...

Good point - I'd think the homebrewing community would be large enough to elicit a change in the packet size for dry yeast if needed; I have to assume that the 11.5g packet size was developed specifically for homebrewers. If no such change is being asked for, the masses must be getting...

All great information, and my questions have been adequately addressed. Thanks guys for all the input - much appreciated. This is exactly why I like this forum!

Interesting note in the archived Fermentis sheet; Could explain why my lag times are longer now - I have been sprinkling the dry yeast directly into my conical while filling from the bottom - who knows if it clumped, I never checked. I also normally pitch right around 65 F so this is below...

I've seen estimates up to 18B/g which, if even somewhat accurate, it sounds as though one could average anywhere between 10-15B/g in an average packet of dry yeast, depending on yeast type, I would assume. So even if I assumed 150B viable cells per 11g packet of, say, US-05, that would mean that...

I started recently using dry yeast, and I know there is a ton of info on dry yeast in this and other forums, and I have been poking around what I could find readily in an effort to simplify my use of dry yeast, and pin down some expectations regarding pitch rates, attenuation, temperatures...