Recent content by BamaPhil

Hey everybody, I'm part of a homebrew club in the Atlanta area that's been floundering for a couple years now. When I first went last spring the guys that had been doing it for a while were looking to pass the torch. To keep it going, a couple other guys and I have been doing our best to...

I batch sparge, and my preboil pH is usually around 5.4, never as low as 5.2. Strangely, the odd beer out with bigger flakes was a saison, all pale malt and a bit of wheat. That's encouraging, that's pretty much what I usually get for hot break material. Really I don't even have any clarity...

A calibrated pH meter, I feel pretty good about their accuracy.

I'm on an outdoor propane burner and get a pretty good boil out of it. I've seen good cold break (occasionally, I don't have a very good chiller), so I know that when I see it. Maybe I just have unreasonable expectations.

Sounds like a perfect way to solve a problem, not just cover it up! I only recently started kegging but may end up doing that in the future. A couple of my first kegged beers oxidized. I'm going to be more thorough in purging with the next few and see if that helps. If not, I'll be going the...

And by that I mean the "egg drop soup" flakes everyone talks about. In 40 or so all grain batches, I've only gotten the flaky hot break one time, and I have no idea why. I think that beer was heavier on what so that could be the explanation, but I've had other wheat beers not "flake" too...

...and my boil is already underway. There's only one reasonable explanation for this. I must now officially be a Brewing Dad! My 6 week old woke up hungry around 5:30, so once mama had things under control, I was heating my strike water. The mission: Have the chiller going in my "No. 33...

That's good info, thanks! I suspect that this, like SO many other things, isn't really needed. Its just a matter of how obsessive you want to be and over what particular details. I've read about pushing star-san out with CO2 but that seems like it would use up your CO2 really fast. Do...

I filled the keg with CO2 under serving pressure (11 psi). I basically just verified this by sticking a lighter into the keg to make sure it went out at the opening, haha. By "purge 10 times" what process are you talking about? Apply gas, shut it off, vent, repeat? After 10 times you remove the...

So I brewed a hoppy amber that has previously won a medal with a 41, all judges agreed the hop flavor and aroma were on point. The bottles I entered were a few months old at least, although stored in the fridge. Flash forward a year and half, and I've graduated to kegging. Since that beer...

A buddy of mine, who's a big porter fan in general, had his wife set up a blind taste test between my porter and Bell's. He preferred mine! It was affirming, because I honestly thought the same thing, but hadn't tried them side by side.

Don't miss the Porter for sure, and I'll add a +1 for Wrecking Bar as well. Throw in Three Taverns and Wild Heaven and you'll be in great shape since all are easily accessible from downtown ATL. Orpheus is also easy to get to and has some unique stuff.

Thanks for posting that, I'm in Forsyth and have started using RO water with additions. This makes me think I should just invest in a filter rather than make trips to the store for water!

Using this priming sugar calculator, and assuming you fermented around room temperature, you probably have between 3.0 and 3.2 volumes of CO2. This is high, but shouldn't cause bottle bombs assuming everything else is ok (it was fully fermented prior to packaging and there's no contamination)...

I struggle with truly understanding "malty" as well so thanks for posting. I'll be watching this thread.