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  1. stratslinger

    Looking for ideas to replace my Perlick 525's...

    Long story short - my aging Perlick's have become unreliable over the past several months, I've lost a keg or two of beer due to blown seals - even AFTER rebuilding them all with better gaskets as per another thread I found here... So - what's a good faucet these days, that's relatively easy...
  2. stratslinger

    Looking for input on experimental procedure

    I've been thinking about running an experiment for a little while now, and I think I'm just now really well equipped to do it. I'm a more or less traditional three vessel all grain brewer. I've read advice stating that you should mill your grains as finely as possible, and others stating you...
  3. stratslinger

    First brew with my ebrew rig complete!

    After one false start with my control panel build, I completed my ebrew build out this weekend and it took its maiden voyage yesterday! The control system is kind of a hybrid Kal-clone/Strangebrew Elsinore setup - more or less a Kal design with a Raspberry Pi running Elsinore in place of the...
  4. stratslinger

    Black IPA - how much roast is too much?

    I'm working on a Black IPA recipe, and my first draft is a scaled down version of an Imperial Black IPA recipe I found floating around HBT somewhere. Anyway, I used some tips I gleaned around here to scale the Imperial down to "normal strength" by only scaling the base malt. And that brought...
  5. stratslinger

    Odd SSR behavior

    I'm in the final stages of getting my control panel up and running, and I'm running into some weird behavior from a pair of SSR's. I'm driving everything off of a Raspberry Pi running StrangeBrew Elsinore - and in prototype everything appeared to work great. The Pi drives 2 channels on a...
  6. stratslinger

    Using cold brewed coffee in a beer

    I'm planning to brew a coffee IPA, after having tried a few, and I have read a few times about how using cold brewed coffee is the way to go. I have just one question: How? To be a little more specific: I plan to brew a fairly straightforward IPA, and introduce cold brewed coffee in...
  7. stratslinger

    Pilot Light Placement

    I'm planning out a control panel, based in part on the design at theelectricbrewery.com and in part on a couple of PJ's designs - and one thought just occurred to me with regards to placement of the pilot lights for each element. My current plan calls for the pilot lights to be wired in...
  8. stratslinger

    Turning an American Stout wort to a RIS wort in the kettle...

    So, SWMBO has asked that I brew my American Stout again sometime soon - but she's asked that I double it up and make the second half into a RIS. I'm wondering if I can just do a 12 gallon batch of my American Stout, and either add some sugars in the kettle to ramp up the OG (brown sugar...
  9. stratslinger

    What would you do?

    I entered a local homebrew comp earlier this month, and scored pretty well. Among my entries was an American Stout I brewed earlier this year, and I got some interesting feedback on it - I'm curious to see what people here might do with this feedback. Without getting too much into the...
  10. stratslinger

    Yeast washing mishap - what's going on here?

    I recently fermented a very simple beer - a Marris Otter/EKG SMASH - with the 3rd pitch of washed Wyeast 1968. I've read various reports that the 3rd pitch is supposed to have some sort of "magical" qualities, and I'm seeing anything but... First off, a very brief history of the strain: it...
  11. stratslinger

    CFC and Plate Chiller users - do you rack off the cold break?

    After reading the latest BYO, the cover feature was BYO's Brewing University, and had a lot of interesting info for newer and intermediate brewers. And one bit of info hit close to home for me, that I wanted to get some HBT feedback on: One particular section of the article discussed users...
  12. stratslinger

    How much does mash temperature variance affect attenuation?

    I've been dealing, for a while now, with a problem with overattenuation, and I've been unable to get to the bottom of it. My beers seem to fairly consistently finish about 6 or 7 points lower than BeerSmith projects (EG, Beersmith projected 1.018 on a recent SMASH brew, and it seems to have...
  13. stratslinger

    Yeast choice to clone Harpoon's Catamount Maple Wheat?

    As the subject suggests, I'm going to try to clone, sort of, Harpoon's Catamount Maple Wheat - but with a bit of a twist. Instead of adding maple syrup to the kettle, I'm going to use maple sap as my brewing liquor. The only question I still have, at this point, is what yeast to use. I've...
  14. stratslinger

    What is the actual purpose of a stir plate?

    Well, I'm kind of embarassed to be asking this, considering I've been using one for over a year now, but I've recently read (and been given) a few pieces of conflicting advice regarding stir plates, and I'd like to get a real understanding here. I've heard at least three different purposes for...
  15. stratslinger

    Thinking about a Marris Otter SMASH... Hops ideas?

    I want to try my hand at a Marris Otter SMASH. Not sure if I'm shooting more in the realm of a pale or an ESB, but trying to decide on a hop to use. My options, on hand, are: - Fuggles - EKG - Colombus - Cascade - I forget the last, but it's a high alpha bittering, wouldn't really be...
  16. stratslinger

    Bargain Fittings

    Just about anyone who's done business with Wayne at Bargain Fittings will tell you he's a stand up guy who'll go that extra mile for his customers. Well, let me be the latest one in that long line to share my story. Last week, I broke down my three 3-piece stainless steel ball valves for a...
  17. stratslinger

    Dumb Question: Does RIMS require a false bottom?

    I'm planning to add a RIMS tube to my brewery in the new year. Thing is, I currently use a bazooka screen in my mash tun, not a false bottom, and the more I think about it, the more I start to realize that channeling may be a real concern with RIMS. Is this the case, or am I worrying over nothing?
  18. stratslinger

    Electric igniter for brewstand?

    As I stood there, firing up my gas grill the other night, a thought occurred to me: has anyone attempted to retrofit an electronic igniters for a gas grill onto a brew stand? It seem like, mechanically speaking, it would be an easy thing to mount, but I wonder how well they would stand up to...
  19. stratslinger

    Streak of overattenuating fermentations...

    So, as the subject suggests, my last few brews have overattenuated while fermenting. Some by only a couple points, some by considerably more. To be exact, this started 4 batches ago, and has been happening ever since, and I'm not able to put my finger on a cause - though I've started to form...
  20. stratslinger

    Beersmith and Batch Sparging - Why so many steps???

    As the subject says - for anyone else out there who use Beer Smith and batch sparges, have you noticed that it tends to recommend sometimes 4 and 5 step batch sparges? On my first few brews with BS, I ignored what BS said and combined those steps into my own standard two step batch sparge...
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