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I wasn't going to post cause I figured one more opinion.. blah.. But the more I thought about it, the more I think I have to post this to get it off my chest. Balance does matter in respect to the specific style. People, and people's palates drift towards styles they like. For instance I enjoy...

I've owned both the old and the new. The New ones are nice. They are different, but nice. At first I didn't think I liked the new valve but the more I use it, the more I realize just how nice it is. Since I sparge (with the auto sparge) and I have 2 pumps control is from the input of the BK...

Great article. I used to adjust the whole recipe up or down but lately have been experimenting with exactly the process you describe from a malt perspective. I've always kept the bittering ratio in check. One thing that has troubled me when using other people recipes is the following. My...

As stated it depends on what you want. 1) Triclad or not. If its a RIMS/HERMS obviously the tricland doesn't matter. 2) Are you diying everything? If so get a basic kettle and go to work. 3) If not DIY then you need to choose between weld and weldless. Thats where the main choice comes. There...

I know you aren't trying to be rude. Interesting. I was A Chem Eng. in college for a few years before switching to Comp E. I remember blanketing gasses in the lab for industrial processes. I guess with O2 and Co2 the molecular mass is close enough that in a higher temp environment (room...

I actually have 3 better bottles that I used to (and sometimes do) ferment in. To address your two comments consider the following: 1) Airlock exposure. During an efficient ferment you inject pure O2 into the cooled wort before the airlock is installed. The container is saturated with O2. O2...

Ok pretty easy for me: Most important thing is temp control during fermenting. If you are happy with your analog control and you are getting good results, fine. If not buy an ohm brew. It allows you to tune your ferment schedule including rests. More importantly it has two outlets, one for...

25 Years ago when I was a kid in college a bunch of us took a road trip up to the UP to go skiing. Money was tight. We arrived at 11 at night after a 8ish hour drive and there was pretty much just a gas station open. Red White and Blue was on special by the case. If I remember right it was...

Sounds like you aren't fly sparging for long enough. I aim for 45-50 minutes when doing 5 gallons, 60 when doing 10, or a high gravity 5. When doing high gravity I'm usually collecting more runnings for an extended boil down so its not that I'm sparging slower, but sparging longer at the same...

I just did an APA where I added 2 oz of sweet dried orange peel at 10 minutes and imho it wasn't enough. I get orange, but not as much as I was expecting. It was fairly hoppy though (dry hopped) so that might be hiding some of the flavor.

Questions to Consider: 1) How are you making your RO water? Is it fresh made, or is it sitting around in a plastic container that could be leaching into the water? For instance I have a RO water tower above my brew setup with a 20 gallon tank. That tank has a plastic bladder. I can taste that...

Way way too much. Fully electric 10 gallon HERMs system. Had to install a 50 amp 240 circuit for it. Got sick of lugging water around so installed a small water tower DI system with pump and pressurized tank. Had to run copper pipe all over hell and back to get it where I wanted it...

Have you thought about adding a little white wheat or maybe a touch of oatmeal to lend a bit of backbone?

aangel: Good find. I never read through his step by step process. He also heats sparge to 158 then turns it off letting it naturally drop during sparge. I'm going to try both of these! Thanks!

I know that commercials get greater than 90% from a variety of sources. First there have been threads here where some Craft brewers have posted than when efficiency falls below 95% they start looking into what is "wrong" with the process. Second when I was googling tannin extraction you can find...

So recently I upgraded my system to an all electric Blichmann W/ autosparge. Coils int he HLT, and the BK with a HERMS. After this upgrade my efficiency to the BK is over 90% regularly. The smaller the beer, the higher the efficiency (for obvious reasons). I've only been dropping below 90% on...

My 2 cents: I use a HopBlocker and a counterflow all copper chiller. I don't whirlpool. Chiller is hooked up to a hose bib. At full blast (in the winter) I can easily get the exit wort below 60F with the kettle valve fully open. That makes it about 3 minutes for a 5.5 gallon transfer. In...

Since I have 3 girls, I'll add one more (Via Chris Rock): 4.Keep them off the pole. (Stripper pole that is) :)

My 2 cents: I'm half German, half Czech. As you can imagine, both sides of my family have a long tradition in beer. My father (Czech side) was bar tending at the family pub when he was 13. He and my mother ran their own pub. My Uncle still does till this day. When I was growing up when I...

I haven't tried to brew this beer, but I've drank it a bunch because when I first ran across it, it really intrigued me. Its my personal opinion that its really two "beers in one". If you drink it and really think about it, there is a sweet chocolate stout taste, whth almost an overly...