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@RPh_Guy Sounds like it's as @bplipschitz said: the metasilicate is depositing silicate residue.

I thought metasilicate was more strongly basic than carbonate. Having just looked it up, (someone on) the internet says metasilicate is a builder which increases surfactant effectiveness by softening water, or (as a strong base) saponifying oils. What would you say its use is for in brewery...

I have an overly sweet mead, but without having any great tannin sources, I brewed some strong black tea for 10-15 minutes, and found that about 15 mL tea added to each glass was an improvement. I would never add it in primary, because it would take serious talent to know whether the flavors...

The background for this question was that some people advocate adding potassium carbonate to mead, both for buffering and for the potassium. But the amounts are huge: 150-300 ppm molecular potassium. It doesn't give off flavors (it's fine), but it dampens the sourness that should be present to...

I've googled this several times in the past several months, and I've come to the conclusion that yeast don't need any more potassium than what's in the must and in the nutrient you add. The recipes that say to add potassium do so solely for buffering, and it often detracts from the final flavor...

I just mixed another batch, and upon adding phosphoric acid, the iodophor immediately precipitated as an insoluble gunk. I strongly do not recommend using phosphoric acid, though it's what the patents generally suggest. I'm not sure why I had such a bad reaction. Citric acid and acetic acid are...

If you want to highlight ginger in your recipe (hint: ginger and hibiscus and lots of honey, plus something else to balance the sweetness), it's hard to have too much ginger. It also seems to fade with time, but that might be because I didn't sulfite. And a note to new brewers: get a scale and...

I made a mead with Belle Saison, alongside some other meads with other yeasts. All were low gravity (going for 7-8% ABV). They contained some caramelized brown sugar, as an attempt to keep some sweetness after fermentation. I under-caramelized and couldn't taste it in the end. The yeast didn't...

If she opts to simply drink it, what can she do to combat the too-thin mouthfeel? I suggest bottle conditioning it to carbonate, also backsweetening (and pasteurizing when the carbonation is done). Would tannins or glycerin help? I don't have a great handle on mouthfeel yet.

The reviews/questions look terrible. Are you in a very dry climate, and not too hot? That's where I would expect an evaporative cooler to be good enough. Alternatively, you could build a big Son of a Fermentation Chiller around your conical. You would also wrap it in insulation and build in...

The important thing is that it stays granular. If it compacts and clumps, there can be a massive variation (ha) in how much fits in a spoon. Fluffy powders are even worse (impossible to measure by volume even when new and dry), but I haven't encountered any in the homebrewing arena.

I guess you've already bought it, but if not, the AWS 0.01 g scale looks better. If you aren't measuring less than one gram (or even if you are, but you are able to dump the material in quickly rather than pouring it as a slow stream), a 0.01 g resolution scale is plenty. That's what I use for...

It might be difficult to pour too much into the small tray without spilling onto the scale, and also annoying to measure that amount with only the ±1g accuracy on your big scale.

If you have 99% rubbing alcohol or 95% ethanol, you can spray it into the tubing and it will carry away some of the water, then it will azeotropically dry the rest. But that's a pain because it doesn't fully mix. Letting it drip dry (held straight) in a warm place is a compromise, unless your...

Beware that the tray will be a bit hard to pour into. Probably smaller than it looks in the photo. But it looks like an excellent choice, better than the Gemini. There may be an awkward gap between 10-40 g which won't be ideal to measure in either of your scales, but I think you'll do fine. Pick...

Looks like you meant https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06W5VXN53

Will you be able to dump in the salts quickly? If you slowly pour the granules, a cheap strain-gauge scale absolutely will not give you a correct reading. The firmware is designed to assume small changes are noise, and disregards them. I can drip water onto my 0.1 g scale and the number never...

Thanks for the tips! For mead, lubing with beeswax seems most poetic, so I'll do that. (FYI beeswax only works as lube when it's clean, so don't try to use it on a zipper or door hinge.) I didn't even think about looking at how the cap is seated in the bell (both before and after crimping), so...

I think it is! But I want to confirm whether cap/capper compatibility is a common issue, like if a cap will fit a bottle well, but not with a certain capper.

I've used dozens of brands, even one of the beers brewed by Samuel Adams, so it's not the bottles. Thanks for the idea, though.