Search results

A new Torpedo keg!

Brewing with chicken feed??? That just sounds fowl.

Curious to see how this turns out. I love Manhattans and Old Fashioneds, and I thought Brooklyn's Improved Old Fashioned was a really tasty beer. Would love to get something similar brewed up when the weather starts turning colder.

I'd go with ball lock...I started with pin and it seems parts/kegs are a bit harder to find. I've since switched over.

Man I killed so much Medalla in PR! Good times

Man...you don't brew for a year, come back into the mix, and these crazy kids are doing no-boil no-chill beers :) What'll they think of next?

Ah, the slippery slope... I started with a $150 kit. Started with partial boils on an apartment stove and bottling. Got a bigger stock pot and started doing full boils. Then went to partial mash. Got a fridge for fermenting in and a few temp controllers. Got a turkey fryer kit, built a mashtun...

Same as most replies here, I use mine to get gravity readings of my mash runoff and during the boil to check that I'm tracking my expected numbers. I switch to a hydrometer for all readings after pitching.

Cleaned my new fermentor and new mashtun in preparation for my first brewday in over year tomorrow. Also gave the kettle a nice concentrated starsan soak to get some of the old beerstone off. Used TSP for the first time.

My wife does like beer, but she has styles she just won't drink. She hates traditional hefes -- the bubblegum/clove/banana thing does not do it for her. She used to not like hoppy beer, but she gradually became an IPA fan. She also surprised me by taking a liking to sours after initially...

Anyone have any interesting/unusual things you do during brewdays to invoke the blessing of the beer gods, ward off the evil spirits of contamination and stuck fermentations, or just because you feel like it, even though science and logic tells you it won't make any difference to the final...

I found mine on Craigslist years ago, if you live by a university they tend to pop up when kids are moving out. Old full-sized refrigerators or chest freezers also work great if they’ll fit what you’re using to ferment in. For me, the dorm fridge was perfectly sized for a 6G bucket (and also...

DesertFox, I'll be thinking of you when brewing this weekend and dedicating my next batch to my brothers and sisters in beer who don't have it as easy as I do. Good luck and brew safe!!

Did you cut/shorten the dip tube on the fermentation keg? If not, no matter how long you cold crash you're just going to transfer over all that junk from the bottom into your serving keg.

I will also add that the best purchase I ever made to improve my beer quality was a cheap dorm fridge and a temp controller. Being able to precisely control fermentation temps will improve your quality control a ton. I use a dual-stage temp controller, the fridge turns on if it needs to cool...

Welcome to the slippery slope that is brewing!! Enjoy, and congrats on your first batch!

It really depends on the style you are brewing and the yeast strain you are using. Each strain has a preferred temp range (and some act differently at different temps - ex: Hefeweizen yeast which produces more of the banana/bubblegum esters at higher temps). Back when I brewed in an apartment...

Years ago I attended my wife's grandfather's funeral outside of Pittsburgh. After the service family and friends headed to a bar/restaurant for lunch and my wife, her dad, and I beat everyone else there so we grabbed a beer at the bar while we waited. This was before you could readily find craft...

Here’s one I made about 12 years ago for my Cal Common. Brewing it this weekend so dusting off this label! Image is an edit I did on a photo I took of an old steam train in Essex, CT (which inspired the name of the brew)

Hah, some great stories here! One of my worst brewdays wasn't your typical kind of bad. I had a friend who was also a homebrewer, but we had very different styles. When I brew, I am a very scientific, measure things to the gram, plan everything out kind of guy. I treat brewing like I treat...