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Victoria mill with a drill and double crushed. Full volume BiaB. Poured in slowly, stirred like crazy. I conditioned the grains the night before and kept them sealed. I've done everything I know to do without getting water reports. This is my 19th AG batch and the highest eff I've gotten, 60%...

I used a gallon of whole milk and a pint of heavy cream from my milk delivery service (south mountain creamery). It was labeled as pasteurized and homogenized. I put 1.5tsp citric acid and 1/4 a veg. rennet tablet in and waited a couple hours and it still wasn't thick enough to cut. I saw...

So I've been getting bad efficiency. I already had one thread where the consensus was my LHBS crusher. I got a corona and crushed 20 pounds of grain with a drill attached. Knowing that fast crushing causes problems I ziptied the trigger and let it go at a slow pace (maybe 100 rpm or so). It...

I do full volume BiaB currently and was entertaining the idea of doing 2 batches parti-gyle style (I'd use my old 40qt kettle for the first boil). I've read various things online with different percentages (60-40, 56-44, etc) but I'm sure they apply to doing traditional mashing with less than a...

I just started buying bulk grain and want to get a crusher at home. my LHBS has a maltmill attached to a motor and when I used it without double crushing my efficiency was <50%. I don't know if that is the default setting for maltmill or it is just old and worn down. I've looked at the main...

This is my 5th AG, I'm doing BiaB and have a 15 gallon kettle that is fairly wide so there is a lot of evaporation. I hadn't gotten a full 5 gallons out yet so I've been increasing the water in by a half gallon each batch. Today I got 5 gallons out (starting with 9) but only got 48% efficiency...

Today I was racking a beer to secondary and brewing a similar beer so I decided to wait to rack til I was ready to put the new wort in the fermenter and just put the new wort straight into the primary I just freed up. I also ran out of airlocks (apfelwein and mead hog up the carboys and...

I apparently wasn't sufficiently mixing the grains and water and thought the temperature was much lower, I think it got to 170 before I cut the gas, I was going to let it cool off by itself but 30 minutes in it was still above 160 so I just stuck 2 frozen 2 liter bottles in. Should I just...

I brewed an India black ale with Belgian yeast and the contest is using the 2008 BJCP style guide so there is no India black ale. Should I just put Belgian specialty ale? It is fairly bitter (100 IBU) and I'd like to compete against IPA's but I don't want it to get rejected because of the yeast...

I split a 2L Wyeast greenbelt starter between 2 batches. The batches were the same recipe with some minor variations, both extract with specialty grains. On one of them I added a 3lb can of cherry Puree. The non-cherry started out at 1.053 and the cherry started at 1.059. I kegged the...

I'm planning on making a 4'X8'x1' raised garden for my hops. I have 6 rhizomes (2 chinook, 2 mangnum, 2 nugget). My question is, is this a large enough space? I've read you can plant plants closer together in a raised garden but I don't know if that only applies to annuals.

My girlfriend got the idea of blueberry wine in my head and now I must do it. I'm normally a beer brewer but have made a wine kit and a sweet and dry mead. Looking for recipes it seems like there is always a significant amount of sugar. I'd like to avoid just dumping pounds of sugar in. Is...

I put all my recipes in BrewMate so it tells me what kind of OG I should be expecting, but I was never even coming close. The last few batches I started heating up some water in another pot while my specialty grains were steeping and when steeping was done I'd pull out the bag and put it on...

Has anyone ever added hops to wine? I am a hophead and have done 1 batch of wine. It was fairly boring so I'm wondering about adding hops. I was thinking I could boil a small amount of the grape extract on the stove with a small amount of bittering hops and then throw some extra in the...

I'm trying to hook up my first kegged beer (it has been carbing for 5 days) and when I try to connect the liquid disconnect beer comes out of the top of the disconnect. I tightened the top if it as much as I can. Is there suppose to be a gasket there or something?

But I have no idea how to hook it up. The faucets go down to this screw on connector that fits the (I think) Sankey coupler. I have the quick disconnects for the corny's. Do I need to cut off the end of the draft line and connect it to the disconnect or am I missing other pieces?

Buckyballs (google it) are rare earth magenet spheres, they are extremely fun to play with. I had actually been testing my stir plate with them before my stir bar came in the mail so I was disappointed to find the stir bar is not made from rare earth magnets and doesn't keep nearly as tight a...

I have a rather large fan that runs fine connected to the 12v 2a power supply but when I put the magnet on it it barely moves (maybe 1-2 rotations per second) and sometimes stops entirely. I haven't seen this mentioned in any of the stir plate howto's, is it a specific type of fan? It seems...

I'm trying to make a pale ale with a very slight cherry taste. After failing putting the pureed cherries on the funnel filter and running the wort through them (they clogged badly) I put juice from 12 oz mashed cherries in the primary for a 2.3 gallon batch. I just bottled (no secondary) after a...

I'm currently doing my first batch. While moving from primary to secondary I tasted it and it is very sweet. I love very bitter IPA's that are not malty and are fairly dry. My question is, can I substitute some of the malt extract with corn syrup to get a dryer beer. Googling around shows...