Recent content by Lemmie

I’m in.

Why can’t you do an FFT? You can pull off 500ml or so from the fermenter, do a hydrometer reading and then transfer the sample to a 1 liter flask and put it on a stir plate for a day or so (or until no visible activity) and recheck the hydrometer reading. If you have a spunding valve on your...

I was reading the wort production chapter (3) of the Kunze. In section 3.2.1.8 Titled “Biological Acidification” the advantages of lowering the ph in the mash were listed with the suggestion “it is therefore advantageous to lower the ph to 5.4-5.5 when mashing. The beta-amylase can be damaged...

I forgot to mention, even though they show Discover card as one of the payment options, they only accept Visa, MasterCard and American Express. I had to reorder the book and change the CC to Visa and then it was declined by my bank and a fraud alert was emailed me so you may want to call your...

This is the English translation of the 11th German edition of “The Kunze” that came out this past June. I ordered it from VLB Berlin’s website: https://www.vlb-berlin.org/en/publications/specialist-publications/kunze Last Thursday and received it Monday, so you still have time to get it before...

I also bought a cereal killer and love it. Before I started conditioning my malt, I had the gap set to .035 and was able to grind by hand easily. After conditioning, I set the gap to as small as it would go and bought good 1/2” drill with lots of torque. The husks are in much better shape with...

I use a cereal killer and I set the gap as small as it would go which I thought was .026, but I just checked it and it was .030. It tends to loosen up in spite of tightening to the max. I condition the malt prior to grinding and the hulls stay in tact and no stuck sparges.

We are dealing with a stuck fermentation right now. We are brewing a Belgian dubbel that turned into a high gravity quad at 1.078. We had originally aerated the wort before pitching a decanted starter but It stalled at 1.023. We made another starter and pitched it at high krausen and it has been...

Your comment about the oven made me laugh, thinking about when I started brewing in the 1980s and my first mash was using a 5gallon crock in the oven. I gave up brewing when my kids came along and I didn’t have the time or the money. I got back into it recently when my son got interested. Get it...

In reference to littleriver’s comment in #7 about including the propane burner in the insulation mass to add heat, and madscientist451’s comment about the electric stove adding heat after turning off the burner. I use a propane burner and maybe adding a heavy medal plate on top of the burner...

Great idea. I love the youth sleeping bag idea. Double duty for my granddaughters sleeping bag.

Good point. To be honest we always just went with the recipe which usually calls for 60 minutes. Do you use the iodine test or is there a better way?

We have been using a sous vide to mash using biab in a 10 gallon brew kettle. We heat up water in the kettle to about 170, clamp in a wire cooling rack to separate the sous vide from the brew bag and add the grain to the bag. We then set the sous vide to the desired mash temperature. To maintain...