Recent content by John1S

Thank you, my fermenter does ok at holding temps but is slow to drop them significantly. Since my heat exchanger cant really get to the fermentation temps without using way too much water I typically cool the wort to about 80F then let it sit overnight in fermenter to get to my pitch temp. It...

I recently got a conical fermenter and have used it for four or five batches. Typically I ferment a beer for four or five days at the target temp say for example 68F. Then when fermentation is finished I up the temp to 70 to allow the yeast to clean up. At this point I have been dumping the...

I have had some off flavors on my last couple of brews so I am re-examining my sanitation. On brew day I mix up 5 gal of star san and use it throughout the day. At the end of the day it goes into my secondary carboy where it sits until I rack to secondary. Its generally a week to 10 days...

How do you say no to sparge. I would like to give it a shot. Do you put all the water in for the mash at the mash temp or do you wait and add all the sparge water at the end of the mash at the sparge temp? Or does it matter?

I have a question about how critical the sparge temperature is. I start at 170F but all my sparge water is sitting on my stand waiting to go. I thought about this the other day when I was brewing on a cold day. By the time I got to the end of the sparge the temp had dropped significantly. I...

I have a little different technique that I use and would like to get some input. I cool the wort with a heat exchanger so I come out of the kettle through the heat exchanger then I catch the wort in a 1 gallon pitcher which I fill about half way. I then shut off the flow and dump the pitcher...