Search results

I do it after a fashion in the BrauMeister. It has a grain pipe and water is circulated through the grain during the mash. One thing I noticed no one mentioning was to take a large spoon during the draining and stab the grain several times to break it up a bit. This helps it drain better and...

Up until now I hav done either extract kits with steeped grains or all grain recipes. Earlier this year we switched to an electric system out of Germany, the BrauMeister. Excellent mash efficiency (70-80%), little or no sparging due to constant water flow during the mash, and easy cleanup...

While my son and I are still relative newbies (about 3 years) we have moved in to all electric brewing and all grain. I have noticed that a good many all grain recipes say nothing about the mash - no temps or times, etc, while others do - usually in some detail. We have done brews with both...

Decide on a basic style and then visit Kroger. A brown or stout come to mind first, but a crisp amber mind be interesting as well.

We just finished a chocolate/cranberry stout using real cranberries. Wife pureed them in the food processor and sanitized with some Pinnacle vodka. We have decided not use real cranberries ever again. Major problems getting rid of the debris. The strawberry stout was fine and we racked to...

If you want to use oak then get it from a downed tree or from a sawyer's chips on raw trees. By the time it gets to Lowe's or HD its been treated with chemicals and probably stained to some degree. By the time you put it into shelf service, a stain is pretty much guaranteed. Maybe you can get...

Thanks much. Just wasn't sure. Any ideas on how long we should let the fruit sit before we rack to kegs?

Last weekend my son and I added some fruit to a couple of stouts and a belgian that were done fermenting. We pureed the fruit and used 100 proof vodka as a sanitizer. The fruit was then poured into the carboys with a funnel and the beer siphoned onto the fruit. About half way through the...

I might have thought that until I saw a therminator in action. The thing is smaller than a brick and takes boiling wort to 70 degrees at around a gallon per minute using water from my well. For the size, convenience and performance, a pump seems like the easiest way to do it. Mainly I don't...

Although the therminator isn't per se electric, it is part of my electric brewery. I'm wanting to improve my consistency and lower the output temp of my wort from the Therminator. Currently I use a 5/8" hose pipe from a faucet running water from a 300' well through the Therminator to another...

The 5 gallon grain basket allows it but in the 50 ltr one, 5 gallons barely covers the heating elements so we usually do 10 gallons and then use 2 carboys.

Didn't get bumped - all four carboys are in a chest freezer that could hold 8 - I can open the lid and dang near crawl in without bumping one. At least the banana smell is pretty much gone - was like an alcoholic banana in there for the first week - couldn't breathe if you stuck your head down...

Almost 2 weeks ago my son and I brewed 10 gallons of a Belgian Ale and 10 gallons of stout. We added extra sugar and some malt to the Belgian and extra brown sugar and sorghum syrup to the stout. I had cooled each to around 70 with a plate chiller and set them in the fermentation freezer...

Dang, recycling code is a 7. Just thought I'd save on not getting the PET bottles online. Thanks for the help. Rick in Atlanta

Can plastic water bottles be used as a secondary? I have some with handles and, being plastic, are safer to handle than a glass carboy. The orange caps seem to fit nice and snug on them too. I wouldn't want them for a primary because there would be no headroom for the foam but that usually...

I have some Stout and a Double IPA coming out of primary in the next day or two and I want to ask a few questions. I'd like to add chocolate to about 5 gallons of the stout. Assuming a level of some of the commercial double chocolate stouts (like Rogue, or Southern Tier's Mokah), how much...

You may want to get a pump that takes from a tub of ice water. Even if you add 80 degree water to it during the chill, you should be able to hit 70 with no problem.

Was recently reading an article that was suggesting pitching a champagne yeast/ brown sugar mix a few days into the fermentation, re-aerating the wort and then continuing on to get a higher ABV. What is the reason for the wait? Could both be pitched up front or would the champagne yeast...

Still trying to narrow the list. The Braumeister has some advantages. It has a small footprint, can do a step mash, has a 200 liter model that could support a brewpub (maybe 2 of them) and is a pretty simple system overall. The spargeless feature concerns me though as far as mash efficiency...

I want to get into electric brewing but really don't have the time available to assemble one from a multi-sourced kit type system. I am looking to buy a decent system and have found them to be a strange set of systems from the single tank, spargeless Braumeister to some dual tank and top heavy...