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Its easier for me to get kegs in and out of the keezer than a bucket or carboy, to cold crash. I've done it with carboys in the keezer when I had the space, then siphoned clear beer into a keg and then carbonated. Unless I'm planning on traveling with a keg and want to maintain bright beer, I...

Welcome! I am in South Windsor as well. I haven't been brewing much lately due to a new infant in the house but I'll try to keep you in mind the next time I plan a brew day...I tent to brew at odd hours, either very early or late at night, to work around the kids schedules. If nothing else...

+1 on this. Some of the links in the article are to no longer available products, but you can find suitable substitutions if you look around. I built mine using this article, and saved some because I had an extra pressure gauge laying around.

Hah...where I grew up, there was a development that went in called Strawberry Fields, and all the roads were Beatles references.

Anyone use one of those stainless mesh filters vs. the standard folded filter paper ones? Pros/cons?

My first thought was to slow down the flow of coolant through the coils, but if your beer is at 38 and your coolant exit temp is 35, realistically there's not much more energy that coolant is going to pull out of the beer through a SS coil. I think with that beer volume you're likely reaching...

Old ale is in secondary here as well, racked off the fruit. My concerns about the spices were unwarranted...currently there is a great balance between the spice blend, fruitiness, and malty/bready body. Looking forward to trying it again in another month or so...I think this one is going to...

You could also try a length of silicone aquarium airline tubing, sliced lengthwise and run like a gasket around the edge. It would have to fit very cleanly though to retain the seal where the ends met.

I would like to be at a table in a competition where someone enters a glitter beer, just to see the reaction. Preferably if they didn't know it was coming. Appearance - FABULOUS. 11/3.

Old ale is racked on 3+ lbs of cranberries, raisins, cherries, apricots, prunes and figs. Cranked the temp up last night to get the yeast going again and it's bubbling away this morning. Prior to racking, SG was sitting at 1.030 so it still has a little way to go...hopefully the heat will help...

Fruitcake old ale is in primary and bubbling away. House still smells wonderful after brewing this morning.

Good to know. What yeast did you go with?

Good to hear. I had the same discrepancies with the recipe as written when putting it into beersmith. I upped the grains to get to a 7gal recipe and also to bump the gravity...I think as written BS was telling me I was at a projected 1.055 SG vs. the book says 1.070 or something.

Oh also if anyone in the group is in CT/RI/southern MA, I'd be willing to drive a bit to meet up and consolidate shipments (in both directions, if possible) to save some money. I'm in central CT, and could drive 30-40 miles in any direction if there's anyone that nearby or anyone who wants to...

Just out of curiosity, did you use the recipe straight out of the book, or make any tweaks? I scaled it up a little anticipating quite a bit of loss from the fruit...last year's beer (the gruit) I ended up slightly short and only had 4 or 5 bottles left for myself after shipping everything...

Is there something missing there? He asked you if you bought it used, and you came back calling him a dick? That escalated quickly.

Fruitcake Old Ale brew day on the calendar for 4/8. Much later than I wanted to, but we have a ton of crap going on around the house...and my wife is pregnant, due early May so I need to get it done before then.

If you're already mashing at 155 I wouldn't go too much higher than that, realistically. If you post the recipe we might be able to give you some ideas for grain additions or substitutions to achieve a similar result. Another option would be looking at other strains of yeast.

Yes, that means you might want to try increasing your mash temperature, so you will end up with a slightly less fermentable wort which will in turn leave more maltiness, slightly less alcohol and fuller body in the finished beer.

Another option would be to find a short piece of vinyl tubing that has an ID close to the OD of the sight glass tube, and slip it over the top of the sightglass while brewing to extend it enough that it won't overflow, and then pop it off again if you're worried about it sticking up too far to...