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I've been using a March 815 Pump to transfer strike water and fly sparge for the past three years. The pump has been working great up until a week ago when it stopped pumping during a sparge. I thought there might have been an issue with the blade, but after taking the front cover off I...

****, After seeing pictures of overflowing fermenters, I realized it's been two days since I checked on my fermentation chamber. I usually only check to make sure the temperature is stable, but I currently have two five gallon fermenters with a triple fermenting. I think I may have a mess to...

I haven't tried filling bottles yet, but I have filled a few growers. I just stick a vinyl tube into my faucet and back my regulator down to ~3psi. I place the growler in a pot and start filling. I stop when the foam starts flowing over. I Maybe only lose an ounce or two of beer. It's fairly...

I always use cold water. A few winters ago, while brewing at a friends house, we began using hot water since we brewed in his cold garage. It definitely resulted in quicker boil times, but I could taste something off in those beers. We talked to the owner of our LHBS and he mentioned that hot...

Both lots beside my house are empty, I've turned them into a spent grain grave yard. Surprisingly, spent grain doesn't decompose quickly, there are still piles of grain from last year.

I would defiantly boil the zest. I a made 10 gallons batch of Hefewiezen last summer and my friend was insistent in putting oranges in his half of the batch. He peeled 2 oranges and threw the peels directly into the fermenter after fermentation was complete. It ended up contaminating the beer...

I kegged my Hop Ranch closne last night and oh boy, it smelled delicious! I'll post a pic and tasting notes in a week or two when its done carbonating. I sampled it after I finished kegging and it tasted and smelled pretty damn close to what I remember the actual Hop Ranch.

Brewing a Session IPA. I'm not sure how it's going to turn out, but I'm sure it won't be bad. Here is the hop schedule I threw together.

$11.31 for 5lb at a local fire extinguisher shop.

A few years ago I purchased a fridge-to-kegerator conversion kit and used it without a hitch. I recently started to keg my homebrew so I adapted it to work on ball lock kegs. It has been working great for the last few months, but last night my half full bottle of CO2 leaked out and my keg was...

I recently attempted to brew a 10 gallon batch of a Hop Ranch clone two weeks ago. The brew day went by without any problems. I split the wort into two 5 gallon fermenters and pitched equal amounts of yeast from my 5L starter. Fermentation took off quick and both attenuated down equally...

I recommend reading "Yeast", which is part of the brewing element series. I never turkey grasped the importance of proper pitching rates until I read the book. I noticed an improvement in my beer quality after I began using a stir plate and pitching calculators. The addition of a temperature...

When I made my Two Hearted clone I used yeast harvested from the dregs of four bottles of Two Hearted. I started out with a pint starter and ramped it up with a quart followed by another. The beer turned out great, the characteristics were identical. I think the Bell's yeast doesn't attenuate as...

I brewed my 10 gallon test batch last weekend. I'll definitely let everyone know how it turned out in about 3 more weeks. 28lbs Pilsner 1lb Flaked Wheat .5lbs Carapils I did even additions of Mosaic and Azacca throughout the boil. 3oz 60min 2oz 15min 2oz 5min 1oz Flameout 3oz...

I currently use a keg with a valve and copper did tube that goes all the way to the bottom. I have a pump, but don't have an inlet on my boil kettle to do a whirlpool. I just use a spoon to stir theory during my whirlpools. I used to use a hop spider, but now I just through the hops directly...

I try to run my regulator as low as possible. I leave it on 30 seconds for my starters and 1 minute for my five gallon fermenters. My last tank lasted for 5 starters and 7 fermenters.

Everyone has their own unique pallet. After reading "Hops", part of the brewing elements series, I was surprised to learn that people percieve flavors differently from one another. There is also a certain percentage of the population that hate bitterness. Bitterness is something that humans...

I just got finished brewing an American IPA. It's going to be entered into a local BJCP competition. This will be the first beer that I've entered into a judged event. Everything went smooth, the finished wort tasted amazing. The only problem I encountered was the fact that I lost 1.5 gallons to...

Homebrewed Altbier fresh from the keg

Going to brew an IPA tomorrow, I'm going to try to take pictures and post them here of the entire process.