Thanks for the replies. The book should be here today. I asked about boiling as I was initially considering one of the Mangrove Jack's kits, and they have you boil water and add to the fermenter. Other recipes I've found of course don't say anything about boiling so was a bit confused. I also...
I've been making beer for a while now (all-grain BIAB is my preference), have also made a couple batches of wine, but have never made a cider. Would like to venture into this but so far have not found just a basic best-practices HOW-TO for cider. I am just wanting to know how it differs from...
Once I move from propane, this is what I plan to go with. All in, with a new chiller, you'll be into it just over $1600 for a 20G setup. This also includes the Steam Slayer so you can brew indoors w/o an exhaust fan.
https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/biabpackagepremium.htm
Lift up above waist height, push out from your body enough to clear the wall, then down to nearly floor level again? I use a Kegmenter and when full that's like 80 pounds. I am plenty strong, but that type of motion kills my back.
Unless I am not understanding your process, I think that will be a back-wrecking exercise to lift a full fermenter over the side and down into the floor of the freezer.
Not knowing any better, I just followed the OP (Wayne's) recipe which indicated to put those ingredients in for the last 10 minutes of the boil. Now i know.
I brewed a Blue Moon Clone using a different recipe a few months ago and found the overall flavor profile quite underwhelming (5G packaged). Although I used 1.5 oz of orange peel and 0.6 oz of coriander, neither of those flavors came thru. I used Hallertau Blanc as that's the closest hop I had...
I first made a marked tube, but have since landed on using a metal ruler. Since every batch is different, I find it more accurate to just pre-calculate what my measurement should be based on my kettle volume, then just measure it directly on the ruler.
I have found that my boil off rate is more like 1.33 gal/hr! I use a bayou-style propane burner and have difficulty getting consistent results. It's easy to over boil, after I first got it, I think my rate was like 1.75 gal/hr! I plan to move to an electric setup sometime to help alleviate...
I found that I also need to account for water expansion at various temps. At typical mash temps, water expands about 2% and 4% at boiling (though this is NOT a linear relationship). So when measuring volumes, make sure to take that into account or you will end up with less than you think you...