Hello from North Carolina!

[MrChocolateBear]

Hello Homebrew Talk! I've been a loooong time lurker (over 5 years), having made a number of ciders and meads based on recipes and information shared here. A friend of mine recently introduced me to brewing beer and after enjoying a few of our batches straight from my own taps, I'm hooked! He's been kind enough to share his Brewer's Edge Mash & Boil with me, so I'm trying to learn as much as I can doing BIAB, while also dabbling in other projects from time to time (want to try my hand at hard seltzer and a few other fermented beverages). Glad to be here and looking forward to learning more about brewing. In a way, the "hello" seems way overdue!

 

[Chorgey]

You came to the right place! Welcome to HBT!

 

[camonick]

Welcome from Colorado. I enjoy visiting NC. So many different landscapes. I have a brother in law in Wilmington and another brother in law near Mt. Airy.

 

[Stormcrow]

Welcome!

 

[Sammy86]

Welcome to the community!

 

[Coastalbrew]

Welcome! I'm a fellow NC brewer and mash and boil user too. This is a great place to fuel the obsession!

Cheers!

 

[MrChocolateBear]

Many thanks for the warm welcome, everyone!

@Coastalbrew do you happen to use any brew software? I've been trying to get into Brewfather, but there isn't an existing profile for it in there. Tried creating my own, but I'm pretty novice still. Curious if you've used it or another package to track your Mash & Boil brews.

 

[Coastalbrew]

Many thanks for the warm welcome, everyone!

@Coastalbrew do you happen to use any brew software? I've been trying to get into Brewfather, but there isn't an existing profile for it in there. Tried creating my own, but I'm pretty novice still. Curious if you've used it or another package to track your Mash & Boil brews.

I've been playing around with the Grainfather app recently. It's pretty easy to use and intuitive. It had an existing profile for the M&B, I think, that I tweaked to match the results I get on my system, which is the important part to using any software. If it doesn't match your numbers you'll never get it to accurately predict your results. I've never used brew father, but there is a thread about it in the M&B FB group where some folks have said what they use on that app.

A buddy of mine once suggested to me to run a boil off test using just water. Put a couple of gallons in the system and boil for an hour, chill and then measure what you have left. You can enter that number into whatever software your using. Then on your next few brew days carefully track your volumes for boil off rate, wort left in the kettle after transferring to the fermenter, and fermenter losses. Plug all that into your software and you'll get it pretty dialed in.

I get about .5G boil off, leave about 8 - 10 oz in the kettle after transfer, and about .5G losses in the fermenter in my system, but YMMV. There's a good thread on here as well of folks taking about what does and doesn't work for them on the M&B. Good luck and happy brewing!