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Here's the refractometer conversion calculator at brewersfriend.com: http://www.brewersfriend.com/refractometer-calculator/ All you need is OG into fermenter and FG measured in Brix with alcohol present. The calculator then makes the correction for you.

Refractometer was one of the best investments I made and a real time saver for the reasons OP noted. You can also use it for FG with alcohol present. Brewersfriend.com has a calculator to adjust for alcohol.

I leave kettle on burner (after turning it off) and throw sleeping bag over kettle to block air convection from bottom. I use to take kettle off the burner and place on a 1" thick rubber exercise mat but realized that was conducting heat causing my mash temps to drop over 7F over course of my...

You'll need 3 or more layers and don't set your kettle on concrete as this sucks the heat out.

I bottled it tonight. The remaining "Brewers share" tasted like an alcoholic grapefruit juice. It finished at 8.6% ABV and was a very pale cloudy opaque light straw color. The Conan yeast has yet to clear. After a couple weeks bottle conditioning followed by 2 or 3 weeks in the beer fridge...

I've got a Hop Ranch clone I used a 5th gen Yeast Bay VT Ale yeast in. It's behavior on this recipe is very different than my previous DIPAs I've brewed with this yeast. I pitched a stepped up starter into my 1.079 OG wort. My typical ferm profile is to drop temp to 62F once fermentation starts...

I found this recipe while looking for a brew to use my free Azacca hops I got from my AHBA renwal. I sub'ed Conan for the yeast as I had a 5th gen I'd ranched in the beer fridge. The Conan is behaving very differently on this recipe from other DIPAs I've used it on. My OG into fermenter was...

So if malts are truly that variable, and I get it that they are, we must either adjust the pH realtime if pH being right on target is important to the mash/style of beer or accept that if pH is off by a couple of points so be it as the same recipe with no changes will vary batch to batch...

The acidulated malt was in lieu of soured beer to get that Guinness "twang" and not to manage pH. I did this for my previous batch of Guinness clone and had to much twang so I reduced it from 1.25% of grain bill to 1%. Same for the roasted barley to cut back on to much "roast" which I reduced...

Grain Bill: Maris Otter 4.28# Flaked Barley 1.59# Roasted Barley 0.26# Dehusked Carafe III 0.18# Acidulate Malt 0.06# To total mash water of 5.25G distilled water added following adjuncts: Baking Soda 1g Gypsum 1g CaCl 0.75g 10% Phos Acid 30 ml (added prior to heating mash water)...

That could be it. I used a different brand of store bought distilled water (claimed it was steam distilled on label but didn't specify if single or double distilled, so, most likely single distilled). I plugged my numbers into Bru n' water and got similar results as Brewersfriend calculators...

I changed the grain bill a bit by reducing my roasted barley and acidulated malt to reduce what I felt in the last batch was to roasty of a flavor and a bit too tart of a mouth feel.

I ask this as I've historically hit my target mash pH within a point using the water calc tool on Brewersfriend.com until today brewing my 4th batch of a Guinness clone. My target mash pH for this beer was 5.2. I always build up my water from distilled water. 10 min into mash pH was 4.8...

A refractometer has been one of the biggest time savers for me on brew day. Cooling my hydrometer jar of mash liquor in a pitcher of cold water from 170 to near 60 was taking 5-10 min for each sample. With a refractometer, by the time I can read the scale the couple of drops of the sample have...

As a follow up to this post my batch of beer turned out not only fine but GREAT using Conan in place of my normal Chico yeast with this DIPA. The plastic smell of the starter might have very well been the affects of the defoamer.

Do a 90 min mash if doing a recipe designed for batch sparging. Expect an efficiency into kettle in the mid 60s until you get your process dialed in. Get yourself 2, 5 gal plastic Home Depot Homer buckets or equivalent. Drill a bunch of holes in bottom of one. Put bucket with holes inside...

Here is second photo referenced in my previous post.

I put my 3G Brewdemon.com plastic conical in an 18G Rubbermaid container water bath. In the photo below the orange round cooler is an ice bath with an old homemade immersion chiller I had lying around which provides the cooling via a small pond pump submersed in the fermentor's water bath...

No rubber stopper, just sanitized foil laid loosely over top. The smell might be coincidental with using a darker/different DME for the starter from my previous Conan starters. Since it tasted fine with no astringent or sour after taste or oily film on top I'm forging ahead with this...

Northernbrewer.com sells it as does my LHBS as a brewing defoamer. Five Star Chemical makes several products for the brewing industry as well.