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Purchase ten ½ gallon jugs of Concord grape juice (no preservatives), 8 lbs of cane sugar, and a pack of Premier Classique wine yeast. Then, you will have everything you need for 5 gallons of red wine and 10 jugs for cooling your fermenter!

I use half gallon juice jugs. I fill them nearly full. When they freeze, the flat sides or even the bottom may expand outwards, but I have never had one crack. I use them over and over. Three or four will keep mine in the 40’s to low 50’s all day. They can, of course, be switched out twice a day...

The two biggest advancements for me with respect to beer quality came with temperature control and excluding oxygen. I danced around the temperature issue for awhile by brewing in cooler weather with regular ale yeast and using the kveiks in warmer temperatures. Reducing oxygen exposure by...

Hmm, back when I was in college, a fellow offered me a St Pauli Girl and quoted; “You’ll always remember your first Girl!” And, I guess he was right. 🤣

My guess as to why it’s so expensive; imagine if you were the one who had to make them every day! You’ have to pay me pretty well for that job. 🫤

Well, I am kegging that beer I can’t brew here today. It’s so confounded humid that I can monitor the filling progress by the condensation line on the outside of my keg! 🥵

When my wife asks my opinion about something in”her territory”, I just interpret that as meaning she wants a scapegoat in case things go sideways. 🫤

Yeah, I think that’s where I goofed. I bought a bunch of brewing stuff from a guy cheap once, and included was a spooky looking beer gas regulator. I took the stem off and trashed the rest. When I got my first bottle of beer gas, I swapped out the stem and connector on my spare CO₂ regulator...

Whoops! My bad; you’re correct. The regulators that I use for straight nitrogen (pushing wine), also work for beer gas. Typing with my brain out a gear; again! 🙃

Right. Once it starts getting this complicated, it’s easier just to hook up a tank of beer gas. Heck, you don’t even have to have a nitrogen connection for your regulator! 🤷🏻‍♂️

What temperature did you ferment at? I did mine at 63.5°, but haven’t kegged it yet.

Interesting. I might have to give this a try. It would be nice to not have to deal with 3 kinds of bottled gases: CO₂, straight N, and beer gas. I use the straight nitrogen to push wine out of kegs, the beer gas for stouts, and CO₂ for everything else.

I currently have a Kölsch in the fermenter working under K97. It was an old kit recipe I had made twice, years ago. The first kit turned out great, so I ordered a second one. The second batch turned out to be the only batch that I have ever dumped. I had always assumed that it was something I...

I have one of the early versions of the Digiboil that was designed to just be a water heater, (no pump). Later, they created an upgrade package, (false bottom, mash tube w/ handle, support ring), that allowed one to use it as an all-in-one. I have used it a few times for mashing when doing 5...

Not really. I quit messing with my computer when I retired and most of my computer work was number crunching and charts & letters. I do most of my online stuff with iPhone. It’s an easy setting on the phone under Settings/Keyboard/Text replacement. Sorry I’m no help.

If you want to do it the easy AND “correct” way, just set it up in “ text replacement” setting under keyboard in general settings. If I type k-o-l-s-c-h, it automatically changes to Kölsch. (No hyphens) Same with c-o-2 to CO₂ . Saves me a lot of effort here. 🍻

One of my favorite sayings conveyed to me by an elderly gentleman decades ago is simply; “There’s no education in the second kick of a mule!” For those of you unfamiliar with Southern agricultural logic, it simply means that if you make the same stupid mistake again, (like walking up quietly...

Mine was not a double-door model, but probably only about 5-½ feet tall, as my current one. This is right at eye level for me, so even though I am in my 60’s now, I could probably pull it off now if I didn’t add the makeup water until after lifting it up. 🤷🏻‍♂️

🤣 I was in my mid-20’s at the time. I was doing the only type of brewing that I knew about using mail-order pre-hopped, liquid malt extract in a metal can. I can’t say for sure, because that was way back, but it is likely that I only put the contents from my boil pot on the stove into the...