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Add this one to the list of homebrew disasters: I was brewing my second batch of Zainasheff's North of the Border Vienna (my favorite). The wort was just coming to a boil, so I took my cell phone out of my pocket to check the time and... plop... it slipped out of my Starsan soaked hands and...

Hey all - I just got a magnetic stir plate, but counter space and consistent temperatures are nonexistent in my house, so I'm trying keeping it in my ferm freezer. My concern is this: as I understand it, the whole principle behind the stir plate is that the vortex is constantly turning over the...

I'm not ready to stop brewing ales yet this year, but my ferm-freezer is in the garage, and in cool weather I can't keep the temperature above the ambient temp (right now, lower 50s). What if I put a small ceramic space heater (like the ones people put in their offices) inside the freezer, and...

I'm making the transition to all-grain, and I was so excited to try out my new 10-gal cooler conversion mash-tun with a partial mash that I forgot to check the capacity of my freezer... just got the freezer and hooked up a Johnson unit two weeks ago. Now my Kolsch is out there happily fermenting...

Check my thinking here: I'm bottle conditioning, and I'm getting varying degrees of carbonation (and sometimes off flavors) within batches. In some cases, perfect carbonation and nice head; in other cases carbonated, but no head; and in some cases totally flat. I would assume that this is an...

I'm an intermediate extract/specialty-grain brewer, and recently installed a Johnson Temp Control unit on a chest freezer for fermenting. First batch was a Kolsch, based on Palmer and Zainasheff's recipe. Living in the steamy South, I set the Johnson for 60 degrees (garage temp is 90+) a couple...