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Do NOT ADD WATER! :) All you'll do is water down your beer. What's lost is gone forever (the reason for my sorrow at the beginning of this thread). You're not losing water when it goes out the fermenter, you're losing wort which is essentially unfinished beer. So just consider it a shame and...

The word I'm still stuck on is efficiency. Efficiency basically means how much btu get to the wort (and how much can be removed during cooling). If you were using the traditional "stick the pot in an ice bath" rather than a chiller setup a thicker pot would be much more damaging during the...

Actually the thicker wall will transfer LESS heat than a thinner wall. It will resist dings and dents better, but will be marginally less efficient at getting the heat to the liquid. :mug:

After my first two years of sealing hops I got bored (4 month old also factored into this), so I said screw it, we're going to make one huge double (triple?) IPA with all the hops from this years harvest. Due to a near unending summer drought I had lost the top 10ft of my cascade hops so my...

Pretty much any commercial yeast that doesn't just say, "Dump in fermenter" will give you those instructions. Yeast PREFER temperatures warmer than 80F, it's just that they produce off-flavors that do not work well in most beer/wine. When you keep them at their proper temperatures <70F they...

I don't brew as frequently as I used to (3 week old), but still like the flexibility of a dry yeast for storage/emergency uses. I switched to Safale and Nottingham depending on type of brew and have nothing but great things to say about them. Again, I've never used Munton's Gold and it's...

zaxxon23 and r flagg, No one "ran with it" bagging on Munton's. Several people on this forum saw symptoms of stuck fermentations regardless of hydration methods. I was one of them. My hydration process is as follows: boil water in microwave to be used for fermentation in glass cup. Add 2-3...

After this thread and my bad experience with Munton's from an AHS kit I've switched to Nottingham and never looked back. Probably done 5-6 batches since then and never had a problem other than an almost explosion when I double-pitched Nottingham in my Ruination IPA clone! :rockin:

So firesloth brought this one back up from April and I'm happy to report on my batch! I've drank about 1/2 of my 4.5 gallon batch and can say in my brewing time this is my best to date (think this is batch #7). I had the pleasure of taste testing this with my neighbor whom bought a bottle of...

As long as they can get enough sunlight and the soil isn't too wet you'll have nothing to worry about. The root system of these buggers is incredible and can establish in even heavily planted areas. One of my 1st year Nugget's last year (it has since died due to a drought when I was on...

A personal favorite I just came across is the Mexican beer Negra Madelo (possibly mispelled). It has a really nice short stubby (almost like a red stripe) shape that looks like it only holds 8-10oz. but it's a typical 12. The only issue is likely label removal as it uses some gold foil stuff...

Well I had planned to bottle last weekend, but something happened during the fermentation and after moving the carboy upstairs to rest overnight before racking and bottling, the fermentation started up again. Not just airlock activity, I'm talking churning of the whole brew. So I swirled the...

These are second year plants. The Nugget trains up a light post at the front of the house onto 5 different sisal ropes into a teepee structure. The cascades I have a permanent 10' pole that in the spring I rig up with about 10 ropes. I've been training them for a couple weeks, but just decided...

Air temp and ground temp are 2 very different things. Boston (like most of the NE) is having an unusual heat wave right now that will end tomorrow (here in PA we've been in the 90's for the last 4 days and tomorrow the high is 65F and the low near 50). Look at their 10 day forecast and you will...

Most of the better brands today have auto-shutoff when removed from water (they sense this by a rapid increase in temp). I think K.I.S.S. is the way to go on this one. Make sure you get a heater rated for the proper temp range (60-80F), and be done with it.

Well he is located in Boston so I'd wager it is a bit cold for brewing ales right now. I'm in SE PA and my basement it sitting at @60F right now, so if he's closer to 50 it would probably be a good idea to bump up those temps a bit. Maybe by late summer the basement temp will rise to the...

Glad to see this thread is taking off! I didnt' take any pictures since it seemed like my experience was not unique, but now maybe I will. Schlenkerla, I love the first picture, as that is how both my Nugget and my Cascade's look. I just let everything grow, no clipping of the bines and they...

I really think this is the key for hops. They grow so incredibly fast and require so many nutrients, and in such a concentrated space that it is very difficult to chemically fertilize and not cause harm to the plant (or stunt the growth). Chemical ferts typically increase the salt concentration...

The growth was so rapid I think I may try to see if my camera has a time lapse setting and put it on a tripod to watch the growth. It was unreal. My parents came over for lunch and I showed them the hops when they arrived, and when they left 2 hours later the hops had grown almost an inch in...

5 hours full sun will be fine. You won't get the same total growth as someone who gets 8-10 hours of sun obviously but it will still produce. The biggest problem will probably be the first year as much of the energy is used for root development and since they are not getting as much sun the...