Recent content by Soviet

Madison, WI

Does anyone want to buy my Braumeister 50L? I would sell it at a discount, along with my upgraded ball valve and quick disconnect, and thermal jacket. I'm thinking of downsizing to a smaller braumeister or getting the breweasy system from blichmann. Oh, and I also have the shortened mash pipe in...

What do you do with the rest? Sent from my Better Bottle

Um, Anyone?

Guys, I'm looking for input from anyone that has used dry yeast to add at bottling time. I haven't bottled for years as I've been kegging, but decided to go back and bottle condition some beers for comparison. I purchased 2 packets of Danstar CBC-1 (special flocculant yeast for bottle...

Read carefully before making snide remarks. I wasn't making the argument you're disputing. Of course the mash loses buffering power! That's precisely the reason professional brewers acidify their sparge water. That's Sierra Nevada's process, and I'm sure they're not the only ones. Now that...

I don't see how this should necessarily affect the volume of your finished beer. I just top up with whatever volume of water I need to achieve my target pre-boil volume, and I don't have to process or heat that water separately. You're kind of contradicting yourself there... if the first...

You've got the right idea. Your mash volume is somewhat fixed if you're targeting a certain water/grist ratio like the classic 1.25qt/lb given in most literature. The amount of water you use to sparge plus your mash liquor after grain absorption should equal your pre-boil volume. The problem is...

Yeast is pretty stable. Breweries try to hurry up fermentation for the sake of production, but a month-2months in the carboy won't have much if any more flavor impact in my experience. Instead of doing a primary and a secondary, have you thought of just fermenting out completely in a a PET...

Again, there's flavor impact, and then there's alkalinity impact. You may very well be right about that quantity. But if you want to be a great brewer, never assume or speculate. Measure. I have 3 times the volume of your water. Also, I know phosphoric acid has no flavor impact. Take a very...

I posted this in the other forum, but I thought I'd start a quick discussion. Let's call it Sparging is for Suckers: 5 Reasons you shouldn't sparge: 1. You have $3000 (more if you modified) electric all-in-one vessel machine and you're still heating water in a separate vessel? 2. You still...

Do you see a fundamental problem here? Bru'n Water is a spreadsheet that's designed to get you in the ballpark (nothing is ever right on in terms of ions), but you don't know where you started and you don't know where you ended up. I use store-bought RO water, and I still need 2-3 tbsp in 15...

Yeah, but there's a difference is perceived citrus flavor from hops and an acidic sourness from too much acid. You didn't answer my question directly, but your response suggested you measured the PH. What do you use to measure PH?

What kind of a vessel is it in? A glass carboy? A plastic primary food-grade bucket? Darkening can sometimes be attributed to oxidation, although in my experience, as yeast drops out and the beer becomes less yeast colored/milky (yeast is very light cream color, almost white), the beer appears...

Hops definitely taste and smell citrusy, depending on the variety. I'm a little concerned about the citric acid usage—have you ever acidified your water before? Do you have a pH meter or strips? I haven't worked with citric acid, so I don't know the flavor impact or concentrations. I myself...