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To answer your question, yes, you can account for the grain absorption factor when measuring your strike water. I do it all of the time and always get good results and efficiencies that range right around 85%.

To expound a bit on the response given by jmf143 to measure your efficiency each grain or brewing adjunct has a potential yield valve. For example, 2-Row has a typical yield of 1.037. You would use the last two numbers of each of these yield values, in this case 37, multiplied by the number of...

I always brew with either my youngest son, who is now 27 years old, or my significant other. Makes brew day a lot more fun and it's always nice to have a strong pair of arms around on brew day. Always something heavy to tote around. :)

I typically get about 1.25 gallons of boil off in a 7 gallon batch when boiled for 60 minutes and end up loosing about another half gallon to trub in the kettle. With some further experience with your equipment you will be able to dial in the exact amount of sweet wort you'll need in the kettle...

I brew only one beer that calls for dry hopping, a pale ale. The schedule for this beer calls to be dry hopped for 14 days which I normally do in secondary after a one week primary fermentation. Rack into secondary and drop my hops into the carboy before adding the beer. Let it sit in a cool...

I've got a problem that is just stumping me to no end. I have kegged and bottled four batches of beer to date. I am force carbonating using 0.5 micron carbonation stone that is attached to a vinyl hose and a keg carbonation lid for the keg. I always chill my beer down to about 34° F. and use the...

Didn't have access to these files when I posted my Day's End label. These are the labels for our two other "house brands". Bottle caps are also color coordinated. Green for the Easy Crossing and chrome for the Silver Lining.

The mash profile will always show up. It's a default with BeerSmith. Make sure that "extract" is selected under "type" on the Design tab for your recipe. Steeping grains are not noted any differently from other grain additions. When adding grain to your recipe for steeping simply add them. If...

I too have a brand new CO2 tank that I'm not ready to put into an exchange program quite yet. I have mine filled at a local fire extinguishers company in Lake Zurich (International Fire Equipment). A little pricey, at $19.00 for a 5 lb. tank, but worth the convenience since I live in the same town.

If you're going to brew an extract you don't need to be concerned with the mash profile. This is only used when brewing all grain. The equipment profile can be accessed through the profile tab. This is where you would setup the information for your kettle and cooling methods. Hope this helps. :)

Sounds like a great opportunity to do something you really love. Congratulations on the new position! :rockin:

Going to brew up an all grain version of my pale ale recipe. Just started all grain brewing so I anxious to compare the all grain version to the extract version I brewed about 5 weeks ago.

I too have had efficiency problems in the past due in a big part to the grain crush. I have noticed a much better efficiency since I started to crush my own grain using my barley crusher which is current set at the factory default of 0.39. I try to go with a water to grain ratio of 1.25 quarts...

Hi everyone, Since everyone seems to be having fun posting their various beer labels I thought I'd post one of mine. This is for my wheat ale which has been brewed twice and is fantastic, at least IMHO. :)

As a follow up to my post from yesterday, I took my test jar from the freezer last night and it was still holding a vacuum after being exposed to -5°F. for about 9 hours. I allowed the jar to warm up to room temperature and it was still holding a vacuum so it would appear that using the Ziploc...

I also tag each one of my fermenters using a small key tag with a string attached to it. I usually loop it through the carboy handle and move it along to the keg when the time comes. I also assign a batch number to each brew and record this information on both the tag and in my brew log where I...

I prefer the glass carboys over the plastic bucket type of fermenter as I have had problems in the past with plastic buckets becoming not air tight. I had a wheat beer almost make a huge mess with blow off because the CO2 that developed from fermentation could not properly escape the bucket. The...

My immersion wort chiller. It's one of those "gotta have" things that make brewing so much easier and quicker. I'm also quite fond of my beer filtering system which I built.

Welcome to another brewer in the Land of Lincoln. I live north of you up in Lake County and have just started brewing 3 months ago myself. Love this site as there are so many knowledgeable people here and have learned a great deal from the various contributors who have been kind enough to share...

I've found an inexpensive way to store my hops long term in a vacuum sealed jar. Can't take credit for this idea as I saw it posted on a website about how to make salads in a jar. I'm currently conducting an experiment on 1 empty jar to see if it works. I picked up a Ziploc hand operated vacuum...