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Always happy to help a fellow brewer, KingKlong. Cheers! Sweet paddle, Xakk!

Ask and you shall receive! Here are the dimensions I used for my mash paddle. You will notice that the width of the board doesn't quite add up to 6". I think most boards cut to the 1"x6"x4' dimensions actually measure about 5 1/2" wide and 3/4" thick. I didn't include the inner pattern...

Thanks! I'm very pleased with it as well. My Dad and I are going to break it in with a batch of American Strong Ale on Monday. Can't wait to see how this thing handles 20 lbs. of grain!

Made this just yesterday. I crafted it from a 1"x6"x4' piece of cherry wood. I used a jig saw as well as a power drill to start the inner cuts. Smoothed it out using a rotary sander and finished with a light coating of food-grade mineral oil.

Ah, yes. Good catch! I meant maltodextrine. Sorry for the confusion!

It's funny you should post this because I just brewed a "vanilla cream porter" with my Dad last weekend where I had to consider just the same question. The idea of my beer was to have a full, smooth body that was just sweet enough to compliment the vanilla beans I added to the secondary. Here...

Go Hawks!

40% rye should be plenty if you want to get some good rye flavor. I would suggest adding ~.25 lb. rice hulls toward the end of your mash, though. Any amount of rye over 20 or 30% greatly increases your risk of a stuck sparge because rye doesn't have a husk. I am brewing a Rye IPA next week...

I agree with the above sentiments about needing a longer fermentation and possibly a secondary fermentation prior to kegging. I also wanted to offer up one other possibility to explain the cloudiness of your beers. It could also be unconverted starches left over in the wort following a mash...

Well the new set-up worked well! I achieved 75% eff. (15% better than I have ever done). I think the combination of the cylindrical mash tun plus a long, slow fly sparge (~45 min. long) were the two difference makers. My goal for the next brew is to work on mash water chemistry. Cheers!

Thanks for the advice. I've read through a bit of the web site you posted and it seems like it has a lot of good info. I'm realizing I shouldn't have been so cavalier about my brewing water. I don't have time to gather all the necessary additives and testing strips before tomorrow morning, but I...

I've been using filtered spring water for all of my brews. I use 5.2 for pH control. I would say that water is the one thing that I have yet to really look into or tweak with my brewing.

Thanks for all the advice everyone. Tomorrow is brew day with my Dad. We're doing a vanilla cream porter. Since tomorrow will be my first batch using the new 10-gal. Igloo cylindrical cooler, I think I will go ahead and stick to the same methods I had been using for the last few batches (a.k.a...

Haha, good question. This began as sort of a "table scraps" beer using some extra ingredients I had lying around (and some local farmer's market honey which was my original inspiration for this saison). I bought a 5-lb bag of carapils a few months ago and wanted to use up what I had. Side...

Wow, sounds like it will be quite a complex porter! I think you're on the right track with adding the vanilla and maple to the secondary as those are fairly delicate flavors that can be dampened by boiling or going through a vigorous primary fermentation. I would say add the coffee to the...

Also a good point. Makes sense why my second-to-last brew had a 51% eff. I had a really poor crush on the grain (this was before I got my barley crusher) and it was my first time using the "Semi-fly sparge" method vs. batch sparging. I'm going to be brewing a lot this summer so I may play...

I do stir quite a bit during the mash. About 30 sec. of stirring every 10 minutes. I completely understand about the rectangular vs. cylindrical MT. I chose the rectangular one for my first MT because the price was right (about $30 cheaper than an equivalent volume cylindrical one). I'm...

The efficiencies for my last three batches have been 57.6%, 51.5%, and 59.1% from past to most recent. Up until now I have been using a cheap rectangular 50-qt. coleman cooler (holds temps pretty well, though) as my mash tun with slotted CPVC as my manifold. I tried to make several improvements...

NOTE: My efficiency was terrible for some reason on this beer (50%), so I ended up adding 1/2 lb. more honey. I suggest accounting for this using your own efficiency standard. Grain Bill: 6 lb. 2-row 3.5 lb. Belgian carapils 1.5 lb. Local honey 0.5 lb. Light munich Hops: 1 oz...

Grain Bill: 12 lb. Maris Otter (Crisp) 2 lb. Flaked Oats 2 lb. British Chocolate 1 lb. Caramel 80L 0.5 lb. Black Patent Hops: 2 oz. Kent Goldings (4.5% AA) @ 60 min. 2 oz. KG @ 20 min. Other: 2 vanilla beans pitted and chopped, soaked in small amount of vodka for 1 week 3-4 oz...