Recent content by Quentin Nelson

Three or five gallon food grade buckets with sealing lids are usually available free at any big supermarket that has an in-store bakery. Frosting and shortening come in those buckets. They smell great if they had chocolate frosting! It won’t effect your grain.

Zip-lock bags, clamped tight in vice to squeeze out air. Then into fridge.

HOPe someone made it right! This is what I did with a pound of fresh hops my neighbor gave me, since I didn’t have access to usual vac sealer.

FREE at your local supermarket with in-store bakery. They throw the frosting buckets away all the time. I usually score one first or second try. Obviously food grade, smell delicious.

Good question Hank! All those other specialty grains have been roasted dark, with or without a previous mash conversation. They are all the sort of adjuncts I add at the end of a normal mash for flavor and color. Except the flaked oats... the UNMASHED oats would contribute a lot of haze and...

Picture to go with previous post. SIte was constantly crashing (due to so many popups?)

1 - All this obsession with keeping air/oxygen away from fermenting beer is way over-rated. Great beer has been made for centuries with open fermentation. Notice the brewer by the “Yorkshire SQuare” is not wearing an oxygen mask. However, if he was in the very real “blanket of CO2” over the...

Bought a 12-pack in new packaging a week ago. Knew instantly when I poured it was different/lighter. Taste was bland. Actually took it back to store & exchanged for an older box in blue & red. I always look for freshness dates; hard to see on dark blue front of box. All the old ones I’ve seen...

Original poster didn’t drink 20 7% beers, home brew or commercial. He just lost count after 4 or 5. If it was at a brewery and bar tab says 20, his friend drank 15 and had a good laugh. Yes, commercial breweries put some terrible stuff in beer, such as sulfates. That’s why I rarely drink...

Check with your city/county water supplier; they probably have a web site or make a few calls. They almost surely use cloramine. Don’t expect much success if you treat that with Campden tablets (sodium metabisulfide) which gives a lot of people like me, a splitting headache. That’s why I don’t...

In the Seattle area, I get a 20# tank exchanged for $25-30 at AirGas or Central Welding. With a paintball refill “station” and a few small pb tanks you can fill them MANY times & they are super convenient for keeping in the fridge or taking to a party with your corny. Even a small 9-12 oz tank...

From your first and last pic, it looks like typical settling, so you have about 3 oz of dense slurry. Just about right for a FIVE gallon batch. When your TEN gallons wort is chilled and treated with plenty of pure oxygen, pitch TWO jars. Temperature matched to wort. - I usually harvest two quart...

I may post this in a couple places where similar questions are asked. Yes! to “keeping things simple”. I have pumps & all the toys, used to have a Blichmann 14-gallon conical. It was cool, but in retrospect, completely unnecessary. Now I brew double 11-12 gallon batches as follows: 3-tier...

Forgot to mention... I’m talking about double batches of 10-11 gallons after boil. I usually pitch a large amount of harvested yeast slurry, up to 16-18 OUNCES, but AFTER oxygenating.

Several green medical oxygen regulators I’ve had all seemed to work about the same. 1.5 LPM might be the sweet spot. I boil in a big Bayou Classic tall kettle; typically 6” below rim after boil. Clear cooled wort, 24” stainless steel wand to hold sintered stone at bottom for gentle stir. (Before...