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I've had Tactical Nuclear Penguin, which is about 1/2 the ABV as this, and it was ok. Surprisingly not alcoholy like you'd think. It was like an OK to good imperial stout. Not sure what I'd expect from this one.

Well, color me stupid. I indeed was repeating an old wives tale. I'd not heard this info before. Learnin' is fun!

There's a couple methods that give kettle caramelization, from what I've read: heating while draining the mash tun, and longer than 60 minute boils. All but a few of my brews over the last 9 months, or so, employ both. I do 90 minute boils no matter what. I try with all of them to, at the...

Not to be pedantic... Glass is a fluid, not a solid, and ever so slowly sags over time. :tank: :cross:

For cleaning up? Move the fermenter out of the closet and use your favorite kitchen or bathroom cleaner that comes in a spray bottle with a Dobie pad or a lightly abrasive pot pad. If it ends up staining, a small amount of paint will take care of it.

Rinsing the grain more means more efficiency, but as the graph above indicates you get a diminishing return. Since you're upgrading to nearly 2x the size of cooler, then get yourself a pitcher and a roll of foil and fly sparge. Just pour your vorlauf and then sparge water onto a piece of foil...

Oh, I love you guys. Getting to read opinions on beers I like where others ABHOR with certitude is delightful. Keep it up! But, really, those of you who don't bow to the altar that is Stone? DIAF. (Joking of course) I liked 16th Anniversary Pale Ale more than the 10th Anniversary Ruination...

Yes. You're fine. As you rinse the grains the color will lighten. With batch sparging (as you're doing) you'll get pretty even color with mash and then the sparges. With fly sparging (adding water "on the fly" as the mash tun drains) you'll get a slow degredation in color intensity.

Yup, it is fun complaining! Part of life, my friend. We complain, get it off our chest and feel a bit better that someone has heard us and may agree. When's the last time you got food on a flight? Used to be if it was during a meal time, now it's only on flights 12+ hrs. My DMV is...

An enclosed space will do nicely. My brother built one with simple 1.5" or 2" thick insulation and a light bulb hooked up to a temperature controller. If you have a spare fridge that'll fit you fermenter, that'll work even better. Get yourself an aquarium temperature controller and make an...

It's harder w/o a temperature controller, but you can do it. You'll need a diacetyl rest to be safe, so after 2 weeks or so in the fermenter, take it out of the fridge and let it sit for a couple days. Then back into the fridge as warm as it will go and turn it down a bit each day until you hit...

If you have a temperature controller, it'd work great. The fancier ones may not work, I've got one that when you plug it in, it waits for you to hit a button. If you have one where you can just turn it on and off, you can hook up a simple temp control and it'll cycle it on and off for you.

A different stopper may do better. I've found that style doesn't like to stay in as well as the solid rubber ones, especially if they've got any moisture on them.

How about you lighten up there buddy? The point is a fun thread where we share our dislikes and find others love what we hate. I've seen several beers others hate that I like, doesn't offend me.

In the last year, I'm well over that limit and I live alone. A decent amount of this goes to friends, homebrew meetings/events, tailgates, etc. Some has been poured because I don't consume/give it way before it's no longer good. Some has been just terrible and was dumped (only one batch was...

Good article there. After reading it, I almost decided to switch to no sparge. If you don't mind paying a little extra for grain to make up for the efficiency loss (and it's pretty minimal, really) it's a good route when you don't have all the equipment available for traditional methods.

So long the pail is food safe plastic you're fine. Do you plan to fly or batch sparge? If you have a spare cooler that's 5ish gallons, you can use that as a hot liquor tank. Heat up your sparge water to 190 or so, pour into the cooler, then use your boil kettle to catch the wort.

Fair enough, I interpreted it as his target. And exactly on the second part. If his pre-boil was 1.070 as in his screen cap, then it's a mixing problem. If the 1.066 was indeed for 4 gallons, then he got much lower efficiency and entered numbers into BeerSmith wrong. And we can all agree...

I was going by the screen cap where he has measured boil gravity as 1.070. His OP said the target OG was 1.066 but ended up being 1.052. Again, if the numbers in the screen cap are correct, then my calcs are fine and the problem is not stirring well after adding the top up water. This is a...

If your pre-boil gravity was 1.070, then your post boil gravity was about 1.086. Diluting that by 1 gallon of water gives an approximate OG of 1.066. Thus, your likely problem is that you didn't adequately stir the wort after adding the top-off water before taking the gravity reading. Wort can...