Recent content by Pickettj

That's what I thought. What happened is I put my brew in a carboy that I thought was 6.5 gallons. When I racked out into a bucket I had about 3.75-4 gallons (estimating because its based on a shadow through the bucket on the markings on the side). Through a little common sense I discovered it...

The recipe was a bock. It was an extract recipe with specialty grains and intended final volume was 5 gallons. I ended up with 4.

I'm a little disappointed that this thread is so short. I had a similar issue with a bock. I brewed and missed my gravity but nailed FG. The calc ABV went from an expected 6.5% to a staggering 8% or so. I don't know if I missed a calculation or if not adding enough top off water will result in a...

It fermented for nine days before being put into secondary. It has been in secondary for an additional 14 days. If I rack into a keg today it will be 23 days from brew day. I dry hopped in secondary. It has been sitting with hops for 14 days. It will sit in the keg for another 10 days at least...

Oh. Forgot to mention. The blanket is to keep the sun out, nothing more. It's maintaining a 66-68 degree temp sitting right next to an A/C vent.

My Alpha King clone will be ready to keg tomorrow (work is getting in my way!) this post is part excitement and part worry. I'm sure the stuff on the sides and top are the hops from my dry additions but I still don't like seeing stuff in my beer!! Looking forward to a custom recipe for my next...

And here I thought I was on HBT. I must have stumbled in to a realtors forum... Ha!

Yeah, but the thief makes for a great sample! I'd still take a thief sample, at least for the first one, to see what my wort tastes like. After that, it would be nice to have the refractometer. I just can't justify the cost when I'm only on my 5th batch of beer. So I guess if you have a...

I'm in!

I stand corrected. The artificially high reading must have come from heat radiating offof the sides of my pot. I did lose a LOT of volume during the brew so I was definitely hotter than my stove boil. The boil I get on my glass top is less than impressive, even with full contact. And a prior...

Well, my turkey fryer boil hit 260 before I got it turned down. I can't dispute your claim but it doesn't seem correct.

I can tell you, for a fact, that it will not. You may get a good roll but you'll never reach a hot break. My last batch I hit 210-212 and peaked. It wouldn't go above that temperature no matter what I did. I have a video of my boil as high as it got here: http://youtu.be/n5rMPnfwAzA I went to...

The thing I don't like about the fryer is its hard to control temp and, since its 30 degrees outside, it sucks.

Unless I use a turkey fryer, this is the most rapid boil I can get. The thermometer reads right around 212 and it never gets hot enough to hit hot break.

I have no idea about that. I wasn't even around in the 70's...