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  1. pete20

    Accidental cold crash after pitching

    I brewed a blonde ale two days ago and everything went perfectly until I fumbled on the one yard line! I have a fermentation fridge with a two-stage digital controller. Heat comes from a hairdrier that hangs inside. When I put the carboy into the fridge I forgot to turn the hairdrier on and...
  2. pete20

    Endless Starter?

    I use mainly one kind of yeast for most of my beers and am wondering why not just have an endless starter? Ideally it would be a conical-type container where you could draw some yeast off for brew days, and another opening at the top to drop in extract from time to time & keep it happy and...
  3. pete20

    Adding Extract to hit 1.100

    I'm an all grain brewer, but I want to brew a high gravity 10% beer, and am hitting the capacity limits of my mash tun. I can do a 1.060 or maybe a 1.070 beer, but after that things start getting difficult. I was thinking of just adding 5-6 lbs of extract to give me that little boost over...
  4. pete20

    Heating Options for Fermentation Fridge

    I was very excited to get a dedicated refrigerator just for fermenting beer, but now that it's getting cold outside I need to think about heating, not just cooling. I have a Ranco two stage digital controller, so I can just plug in a heating device, but I'd rather not buy a couple of fermwraps...
  5. pete20

    Reusing Yeast from Keg Fermentation

    I'm wondering if anyone has experience reusing yeast at the bottom of a corny keg by pouring new wort directly on top of it? Because I ferment right in my kegs, I'd like to take a recently kicked kicked keg and refill it with fresh new wort (of the same or similar style beer). I always rack...
  6. pete20

    Fermenting in corny kegs

    I'm a big fan of fermenting right in a corny keg, both primary and secondary. Hooking up a CO2 tank and doing a keg-to-keg transfer makes racking so much easier that with a carboy and siphon. For primary fermentation I just remove the pressure release valve, stick in some plastic tubing...
  7. pete20

    Best Mashing Techniques

    I've always used the "no sparge" method (basically two mashes) and just poured the water right onto my grain. My beer is great but I'm wondering if I'm missing something. Do you think fly sparging and/or doing step mashes are better? More efficient? Better suited for some styles?
  8. pete20

    When is beer ready to carbonate?

    I just removed the dry hops from my latest IPA and also checked the gravity. It's at my target 1.010 even though it's only been two weeks since brew day and I'm wondering if it's OK to begin carbonating it? Usually I do one week in primary, and then two in secondary before hooking up CO2 to...
  9. pete20

    OG much higher than expected. What happened?

    I've brewed many recipes from Jamil Zainasheff's excellent book "Brewing Classic Styles" and I usually hit his OG (pre & post boil) and FG numbers right on the nose. But last weekend I brewed his Blonde Ale recipe and my pre-boil and post-boil OG's were 11 and 12 points higher respectively...
  10. pete20

    Adding oak chips -- how much, how long?

    I've got an IPA (50 IBUs) that I want to add some oak chips to but am having trouble finding good information on the subject. One complication is that I'm not using oak from my local HBS, because I really want to use red oak chips from my hometown. The chips are roughly 1 x 1.5 inches and...
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