Search results

I got rid of the inconsistency of preboil volume measurements by sparging into a bucket with measurements marked every half gallon. I then transfer from the bucket to the boil kettle. If you try this, don't trust the measurements that are sometimes premarked on the bucket (such as the "Ale...

Actually you can use anywhere between 1.0 and 2.0 quarts per pound of grain. The standard seems to be about 1.25 qt/lb but I use 1.5. If you get the mash too thick or too thin you will have conversion problems. 1.8 qt/lb is a bit on the thin side but okay. I would go a bit less in case you...

I get virtually no leakage from my jars of wort. The most common cause of this boilover is reducing the pressure too fast. As the temperature rises, the boiling point gets higher. At the end of your canning session, the wort is at around 250° F at about 20 psi. If you try to let the pressure...

Our local Target store is closing them out this week at $20. If I didn't already have two, I would jump right on that. :) More seriously, having an extra burner and pot around comes in handy if you are doing all grain. Use one for hot liquor tank and the other for a direct heat mash tun or...

Yes you do have to take the plastic out. Start by cutting the ends off. The two easiest method I have used are a hatchet (nice and quick) and with a tubing cutter. Getting the braid off takes a bit of work. First put on a heavy pair of gloves. The wire ends are sharp! You then need to push...

You won't get any off flavors from the krausen unless you leave the beer in primary for 2 or 3 months. The "hangover contributing resins" you are talking about are the fusel alcohols that result from fermenting at too high a temperature, not from anything in the krausen. The krausen contains a...

If you are batch sparging, a shallow grain bed in a big cooler works just fine. The only difficulty would be heat loss from the large surface area relative to the depth of the grain. Wayne Bugeater Brewing Company

It is hard to pin down when my "brewing" actually begins. I think about brewing a couple times a week, but obviously don't brew that often. I run water through my RO filter the night before. Though part of the brewing process I don't consider that the start of "brewing" because it is at...

Hold on folks! The OP is batch sparging and a lot of you are basing your advice on fly sparging. Batch sparging goes fast. Fly sparging goes slow. Sea is not complaining about stuck sparges, so solutions for that are irrelevant to his efficiency problems. I assume you are doing a full 60...

As a rule of thumb you want your fermenter to be at least 25% bigger than the wort size to allow for the krausen. Your 6.5's are ideal for 5 gallon batches. Wayne Bugeater Brewing Company

Lengthy pm sent. Wayne Bugeater Brewing Company

Yes, yeast will give off heat during fermentation. A temperature rise of 7-10° is not uncommon at high krausen. Among other things, the higher the temperature of the wort at pitching (along with ambient temperature) the greater the rise will be. This is due to the yeast being more active at...

Last year I brewed an imperial IPA that turned out pretty good so I entered it in a comp early this year and won a gold medal. Then this October I found a couple more bottles of it that I had misplaced. Knowing that the hops fade badly after a few months and that this one was over a year old...

OG (original gravity) is simply the SG (specific gravity) before fermentation and FG (final gravity) is the SG after fermentation. In my brewing log I use SG to denote any intermediate gravity readings between OG and FG. Wayne Bugeater Brewing Company

Once you figure the right ratio of the two beers, go ahead and mix them. Nothing wrong with that. Historically, many beers were blended. Porters were traditionally blended between old ("stale") beer and new beer. Belgian gueze is actually blended lambics of varied ages. I will be doing a...

This project sounds like a solution in search of a problem. I have been brewing off and on for 35 years and have never run into a problem with oxidation in the mash. You would have to try very hard on purpose to oxidize the mash. There are many other things you would be better off applying...

Star san will cloud up some plastics but won't do any damage. Wayne Bugeater Brewing Company

I keep a keg full of Star San around all the time. It's great being able to dispense a little sanitizer for use around the brewery. Whenever I clean kegs, I push star san from keg to keg with CO2 to sanitize and purge the keg at the same time. Also this way I usually don't leave it in the...

I use these chargers on occasion. It usually takes 2-3 cartridges to dispense a 5 gallon keg. I make sure I don't leave the charger on the keg. I keep it in my pocket until someone complains that the keg isn't pouring and then I give it a shot. If I don't do it this way, it takes 5-6...

The only difference between a pot for extract and one for all grain would be that you have to have a pot big enough to do a full volume boil when doing all grain. This difference in the pots you mentioned will be the rate of evaporation during the boil. The wider the pot, the more evaporation...