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The temp is locked in for at least 30 minutes before it falls a degree or 2...... Last nights grain bill was 14 lbs. with 5 gals of mash in water and just under 5 gals of sparge water. I'm going to try a new thermometer and thinning the mash a bit on my next brew.

Anybody who can help here will be greatly appreciated..... I have a 9 gallon square cooler with a braided stainless hose that I have been using for my mash tun. I typically mash for 60-75 minutes (single infusion)and do a single step batch sparge which I let rest for about 10 minutes. My...

You are going to have a full bodied beer for sure. If it was me, I would just go with corn or table sugar. Those will ferment the driest and maybe let the hops shine through a little more? Also, having a little more booze in there might balance the maltiness as well. That or you should leave it...

Just circling back.... The Citra was awesome for bittering, flavor, and aroma. Best Pale I've ever had. (I guess I'm a little partial) Thanks everybody for your input. The keg got polished off on new years eve in one night, everybody loved it. I just brewed it again, but split the hop bill...

Looks good to me! Clarity is a little overrated..... If it tastes good that's usually all I need.....

Were you talking about cold crashing in the bottles or in the primary? I usually crash in the primary for 3 days before I bottle at about 38 degrees F. After that I'll rack to the bottling bucket and prime as normal. You could crash in the bottles but you would need to bring them back up to the...

Wheat beers go pretty quick. I brewed a German heff, left it in the primary for 10 days, bottled it and it was carb'd and ready 4 days later. My wire even drank 3 of them! I would be careful about dry-hopping longer 7 days. The hops can develop a soggy / swampy flavor if left wet for too long.

Well, I guess I'll have to take your word for it, but I'm not comfortable changing my approach just yet..... I wonder why not very many people use cold water to sparge if that is the case....... What about for wheat beers? Don't you think that would lead to a stuck sparge?

Viking Chris is right on.... It depends on the style of beer your are brewing and what is in your tap water. To get my balance in the right range I use gyp to drop my pH, and baking soda to raise it. But you have to look at your water report and see what you're starting with. The formulas...

Yea if the efficiency is all good use it. For me for whatever reason the screen setup left me a little light. It took about twice as much vorlauf to get the grain bed set too, but with the false bottom when you get to the end of the running, if you don't stop in time the false bottom lifts up a...

If you batch sparge cold the sugars that are attached to the grain will not release as well. Using hot water help break the sugars (and some proteins) free from the grain so can be lautered easier. Kind of like when you're doing the dishes with cold water and the food sticks to the plates, then...

This is where I always go: http://www.hogtownbrewers.org/brewschooldocs/malt-chart.pdf

Just a heads up, when I went from a stainless screen like you have to a false bottom, my efficiency came up by like 10%. So if you aren't getting the level of conversion you are after you'll know why. Food for thought....

I use brass sometimes but prefer stainless. Either way, I listened to a podcast that John Palmer did about brewing metals and the dangers associated with them. There is such a trace amount of brass or stainless compounds in finished beer that they are significantly lower than what the FDA...

So when you batch sparge you should start checking the gravity of the 2nd runnings when they're about halfway drained. If you get down the 1014 range, slow it down and check more frequently. If you get to 1010 stop. Getting that low will extract undesirable flavors from your grains. Also, with a...

Keep it simple for your first few brews until you get your efficiency down. A hefeweizen is a great drinker and pretty easy. Do like half white wheat and half 2 row and a noble hop..... Just be careful because the wheat can give you a larger than usual krausen (and sticky). You may want to use a...

Normnmiles is right. The presence of alcohol throws off the refractometer reading, that's why I asked. Looks like you are using BeerSmith mobile, right? There should be a refractometer tool built into that software that will make the "alcohol present" correction for you. If you started at 1050...

I'm down to just over 4 hrs for 5 gals. I do batch sparge though so that helps. I have the sparge water heated and ready when my 1st runnings are done being collected. I'm always cleaning throughout........ the Darkstar burner gets 6.5 gals boiling in about 20 minutes, and on a cold day the...

Only to 1.025 after 8 days? Are you using a refractometer or a hydrometer to take your reading? You're at 66 degrees f, which is good for ale, but if you truly are at 1.025 you should warm it up a bit to help it attenuate down. I'll typically go from the 1.050 range down to 1.012ish in about 4-5...