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Well drying it out might actually be a win in the end since wife is not a huge of milk stouts. This is a good learning experience on a couple of fronts: did now know that corn sugar will dry the beer out double and triple check ingredients! I will taste it when fermentation is done and...

So here I am brewing a Milk Stout tonight that I am planning to add cacao nibs to in a couple of weeks and add cold press to at bottling. I am doing 2.5 gallon BIAB with the following grain bill: 4 lb American - Pale Ale 0.38 lb German - Carafa III 0.38 lb United Kingdom - Pale...

I am wondering if anyone has tried to brew a Cacao Bender clone? It is not a beer that is ever available in the store and I have only had it at SurlyFest a couple of times. It would be great to be able to brew up a batch as I remember it being one of the best coffee/chocolate beers I have had...

I have a 5 gallon kettle and a single 5 gallon fermentor. I purposely have my equipment set up for smaller batches only. As far as storage I got the information from BYO. If I was able to mill the grains myself I could get a year+ out of unmilled grains. The trouble is that I do not have a...

That was the first thing I did, they said no. Now I just need to figure out if I would do 6 batches in a few months....

I am wondering if anyone has bought a Northern Brewer all-grain kit and split it in half? I did a search and did not find many posts on doing this. They currently are running the $19.99/IPA kit with you buy three. The problem is that I only have the equipment to brew 2.5 gallon batches. Seems...

Thanks. I saw that as well. Still not sure - so many good thoughts/opinions in answers. Might have to brew a handful more batches to get some more BIAB under my belt to figure out what I really want to upgrade. I keep going back and forth.....

I thought I was confident in my numbers, but I had to be off as it did not match my wort boil off. The tough thing is measuring the boil off. I created a measure stick using a small wooden dowel and then marked at 2 gallons using the markings on my el cheapo kettle. Then measured and added...

Ok this is now sitting in a 5 gallon carboy - 4 hours start to finish, not too bad for 1st time I would say. Few thoughts and problems though: 1 - ended up with OG of 1.050 - should have been 1.067 2 - ended up with estimated 2.6 gallons instead of 2 gallons in carboy. I am guessing this...

Thanks all. I started my boil with an estimated 4.1 gallons. I was able to do a quick 30 min boil and it seems like I boil off around 0.9 - 1 full gallon per hour. Ended up with 3.6 gallons roughly after letting bag drip a bit and doing a couple small squeezes.

Great, thanks! I am doing no sparge. I will have to measure my boil off tonight for mine to figure it out. I don't recall where I saw 1.2, but sounds like I'll be way off. Looking at this I will be using Priceless and change boil off down a bit. And I went into Brewer's Friend and updated...

I am not going to sparge - just let it drip and maybe squeeze a little. So if I am understanding you right you would: 1.6 gallons for grain (includes enough for boil off?) 2 gallons to end with 0.5 gallons for sparge Total of 4.1 gallons. That means I should be using Priceless.

So I am doing my first BIAB today - a clone of Deschutes Fresh Squeezed. I have sized down the recipe to 2 gallons as I am using my el cheapo 5 gallon kettle. I am confused on strike water volume. Total grain is 4.91lbs with 60 minutes at 150. I am getting two different water volumes...

Thanks all. Sounds like 10 gallon is the way to go. I am going to do my first BIAB batch tomorrow in my el cheapo 5 gallon - 2 gallon batch with a 4 gallon boil. How this goes will determine how quickly I need to buy a bigger kettle....

I was looking at that as well. I am wondering about keeping temp during mash though. How do you use the probe and get your lid to close completely keeping heat retention? This was another semi reason I started looking at upgrading to a nicer kettle was to keep heat in during mash time.

Hah - not poo pooing dream at all. One of the reasons I posted was to get opinions to make sure I consider everything. What I have will work just fine no problem - this is definitely a want and not a need. One of the reasons I want to upgrade my kettle is because what I have now is just a...

Nice! I had not known about the waterproof probe like that. Little more expensive than a built in thermometer, but lots of other uses as well. Time to look into them a bit now....

Which mini fridge would fit a 5 or 6 gallon carboy? I would have to look at a smaller upright or freezer for that I think - at least none of the small mini/dorm fridges would that I have seen. And having one appliance with a keg in it already I would not want to add another. So in addition to...

That is what I am thinking, BUT at $300 for the Spike 10 gallon it is quite a bit more than the 5.5 gallon from SSBrewtech. And the SSbrewtech 10-gallon has the thermowell at 4 gallons so that would not work for my small batches.

Yes, another kettle size question! Wohoo! I have been doing a ton of reading and have read through numerous previous threads on kettle sizes. I am still torn and looking for opinions. I am moving to BIAB and planning on doing mainly 2 to 3 gallon batches. I do brew on my stovetop in the...