Recent content by J2W2

Signed up yesterday, and appeared to be the first, and only, one in. Now that entry is gone - I guess April Fool's on me! Anyway, looks like a great setup. I'm in!

I ferment with the same SS Brewtech Brew Bucket. I position the racking arm just past horizontal when I do the initial setup, just to keep falling material from landing in the opening. I've been able to pull samples from that position without much issue. It may initially pull a little trub, but...

Count me in!

Thank you - this is all very helpful. I was not planning to use a secondary. I have a 12L Speidel fermenter that I thought would work well for the 2.5 gallon batch I was planning to make. Could I add the plum juice to the primary, after the apple juice ferments down, or is a secondary the best...

Now that I think about it, I believe you may be correct. When you say you add 20% fruit or juice to the secondary ferment, do you mean you ferment the apple juice and then add your other juice? And do you allow the addition to ferment out as well, or do you stabilize the apple cider first or...

It's a SS Brew Tech Brew Bucket (7 gallon), so yes, it's a five gallon batch. They are just normal size hop pellets. I had my phone fairly close when I took the picture, so it may have made things look out of proportion.

I checked on them yesterday. They were more "smoothed" out, but I'd already sanitized a spoon, so I gently pressed them down a little. I debated on bagging / not bagging, and ended up tossing them in loose. I'll know in a week or so how wise that was when I rack it to secondary. I just pulled a...

Hi, I'm brewing a Pliny the Elder Double Dry-Hopped for the first time. It calls for a seven-ounce pellet hop addition in the primary on day one, and a three-ounce addition on day six. When I added the first addition on day one, it was during high krausen, so I dumped the hops on top of the...

I've been thinking about making a plum cider, and I was planning to use 100% plum juice (from concentrate). Is that a good plan, or should I be looking at a mix of apple and plum juice for the base? Thanks!

Since it's my first time brewing it, I'm going to stick to the recipe's hop schedule, which says to add the second hop addition to the primary on day six. Both additions go in while fermentation is very active. This is right off the Russian River website: " The original Pliny is dry-hopped on...

Hi, I've brewed several batches of Pliny, but this is my first shot at their Double Dry-Hopped variation. Per the recipe, I added seven ounces of loose pellet hops to my primary on day one. On day six I'll add the final three ounces. Assuming it ferments like my regular Pliny batches, it will...

Yeah, it's day two for a double IPA with a S.G. of 1.074, so very active fermentation, but it was still very surprising. I'm glad I was keeping a close eye on it as my buckets only hold around 2.5 gallons. This is in my basement, so it would not have been good if it started overflowing. Next...

This is the first time I used active fermentation to purge anything. I needed to purge a keg too, so I did that first. I know the fermenter puts off a lot of bubbles, but I was amazed how fast it purged the keg. Five gallons out in a little over three hours. Since that worked so well, I decided...

Hi, In the past year I've switched from primary/secondary to primary only, and started really trying to reduce my O2 exposure (closed transfer, fully purged kegs, etc.) Right now I'm brewing a Pliny the Elder Double Dry-Hopped clone, which has two fairly large hops additions at day one and day...

When you bagged your hops, did they float or sink? I read that once the pellets get saturated, they sink. My fermenter has a conical bottom, so it seems like the hops would collect down there and reduce their exposure to the wort. I guess I could tie a sanitized piece of thread to the bag, and...