Recent content by rje45

The Fairmont Homebrewers Club is hosting the 5th Annual Homebrewers Against Hunger in Fairmont, WV on 9/23. If you're a WV homebrewer or enthusiast, come out for some great live music, food trucks, and home brewed beer. $15 donations for 10 tastings. There will be raffle prizes as well. It's...

Also: Special B

I've been meaning to start doing this. Thanks for the reminder. Any advice that isn't on the page you linked?

Did you end up moving to WV?

I see what you're saying. The mash pH can still be affected, but the lauter pH wouldn't be. I get it now. Thanks for clearing it up. Does the water volume in the mash affect the mash pH though? I thought that would come more from the acidity of the water itself than the volume. My point about...

I was under the impression that it was pretty much universally accepted that pH is not as important when batch sparging versus continuous sparging. Do you have a source? http://byo.com/mead/item/1392-sparging-a-comparison-of-batch-vs-continuous http://www.dennybrew.com/

I typically take the total volume of the boil, divide it by two, and add .15 gallons per pound of grain. If you have a 10# grain bill and 7 gallon preboil volume: 3.5 + (.12)(10) = 4.7 gallons. I try to make sure the first runnings and sparge volumes are as close to even as possible. I...

MASH and Fairmont Home Brewers Club are both good clubs. The thing that the area is really lacking is a home brew supply shop. There are two places in Morgantown where you can get grains, extract, and a few supplies (Slight Indulgence and All U Need). Washington, PA (~50 miles to the north) has...

Would this depend on the amount of head space in the mash tun? I haven't had any problems with temperature drops in my mash tun, so I'm curious if this is something I should be doing.

The Fairmont Homebrewers Club is hosting the 3rd annual Homebrewers Against Hunger in Veterans' Square in downtown Fairmont on October 3rd. Guests will sample home brew donated by Fairmont, Harrison County, and Morgantown area home brewers. Last year there were about 12 home brewers and we're...

One thing about a keggle, whether it is your boil kettle, mash tun, or HLT: you're going to want a valve on it. That sucker is far heavier than a stainless pot. It takes longer to heat up and it gets really, really hot. Trying to lift a keggle MLT with 5 gallons of water to pour into your mash...

There's a chance that you mashed too hot. That would explain the sweetness. And if you mashed way too hot, it would explain your pour starch conversion and the sweetness. What was your mash temperature?

I had to do this last week. I completely overestimated my ability to mash over 25lbs. I saw that it required an 11.5gal mash tun and it didn't register for some reason. I ended up splitting between my 10gal igloo mash tun and mash-in-a-bag in a keggle. I had no problems hitting my target OG...

I get what you're saying, but it doesn't really have to be at the drop of a dime. You can pitch at 75 and set in whatever environment you're going to ferment it in. I pitch at 73 or so and set it in my fermentation chamber or basement (at 66 degrees year round). My point is that pitching at 75...

I'm confused on why you don't hop like you would if you were doing a full 10 gallon boil. Wouldn't that give you the right IBU after you dilute it with water?