Recent content by oshucks

The recipe turned out a stunning beer. Smooth as a baby's butt, chocolate, roasty, just enough oak, and a hint of bourbon. In a side-by-side, with this beer on draft, against a 12oz bottle of commercial Velvet Merlin, it wasn't a clone. it wasn't even a fair fight. The homebrew was richer, more...

Thanks for pointing that out. I'd overlooked that detail. The FW website says that they do all the fermenting in stainless, and partially age in barrels. So, probably best not to go over the top with oak or bourbon. They ferment a percentage of their DBA in the union barrels. For the 5-gal batch...

I was lucky enough to get some feedback from Matt Brynildson himself about my draft of a clone recipe for Velvet Merlin. Here is what I ended up with. Haven't tried it yet, as I'm waiting for my current batch of DBA to finish up to clear out the fermentation chamber, but I can't wait to give it...

Chilling, decanting, and then adding the full 2.5 liters certainly sounds like a sensible approach, but it costs about a day, give-or-take. Adding 2.5 liters on top of the original 1.5 liters would result in a wort gravity much lower than the nominal target of 1.040, assuming that the...

Anybody have any experience with pre-formed fiberglass pipe insulation? This outfit has some pre-sized for 16"dia pipe, 1" thick, rated to 1000degF, with a foil outer insulation...