An overview and comparison of the pros and cons of the four main types of fermenters available to homebrewers and winemakers; plastic buckets, carboys (glass
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Category: Brewing & Winemaking
Adjusting Homebrew Recipes Due to Extract Efficiency Differences
A quick tutorial on how to adopt (modify the grain bill) another person’s homebrew recipe when its extract efficiency is different from your own brew
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Scaling Homebrew Recipes
A short tip on scaling your homebrew recipes and answer to a question I get regularly. Leverage my brewing recipe template to scale a recipe
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CF10 Spike Conical Unitank Fermenter: A Hands-On Review
An overview and walk through of using the CF10 Spike Brewing conical fermenter to ferment a 10 gallon batch of beer that I made. Topics
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The Pico Pro: A Hands On Review
My review, and walk through, of using the Pico Pro by PicoBrew to brew a beer with one of their prepackaged PicoPaks. The PicoPak I
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My 10 Gallon Brewery: Overview & First Brew Day
In this culmination of my 5 to 10 gallon brewery upgrade project, I walk through the new brew system layout showing how the individual components
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My Spike Brewing 20 Gallon Custom Kettle
The 4th component in my 5 to 10 gallon brewery upgrade project is my new 20 gallon 3-port stainless steel brew kettle from Spike Brewing.
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How to Make an Immersion Chiller: A DIY Project
A tutorial on how to build an immersion wort chiller suitable to chill ten gallons of hot wort down to yeast pitching temperature. This is
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Building a Hot Liquor Tank: A DIY Project
An easy step-by-step tutorial on converting a 10 gallon beverage cooler into a Hot Liquor Tank (HLT) for all grain brewing. This is another component
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Building a Mash Tun: A DIY Project
As part of my 5 to 10 gallon brewery upgrade project, this step-by-step tutorial on making your own mashtun/lautertun from a picnic cooler will allow
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Brothers Brown: English Brown Ale
My brother, Chad, and I made a batch of English brown ale, fermented it while naturally carbonating in the Fermentasaurus conical fermenter, and racked it
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How to Make a Spunding Valve: A DIY Project
Learn how to make your own home brew spunding valve to assist with closed system pressure transfers from vessel to vessel (e.g. fermenter to keg)
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The Fermentasaurus: A Hands-On Review
My opinion of the Fermentasaurus conical fermenter by Oxebar in context of brewing a beer; an English brown ale. Also featured is the pressure lid
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Brewing Recipe Template v2.2 Update
Version 2.2 of my brewing recipe calculator template is out. Updates include an SRM color calculator, a forced carbonation keg pressure calculator, and a MUCH
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The Unnecessary Secondary: Why I Don’t Use Secondary Fermenters
A common question I get is whether I perform secondary fermentation in secondary fermenters or not. There are several very good reasons why I do
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Batch vs Fly (Continuous) Sparging: Why I Batch Sparge
I get a lot of questions on this topic, so I thought that I’d do a quick Q&A on why I batch sparge instead of
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Brewing Recipe Template v2.1 Update
Overview of enhancements and fixes to my brewing recipe calculator spreadsheet since version 2.0. 1:03 – Instructions Tab Update 1:42 – Sparge Calculation Update 2:35
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Hefeweizen
Brewing, fermenting, kegging, & tasting of a hefeweizen, a Bavarian-style wheat beer, to quench my thirst on a hot Summer day. Made with Hallertau hops,
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The FastFerment: A Hands-On Review
A review of the 7.9L FastFerment by FastBrewing & Winemaking in context of fermenting and kegging an actual homebrew, a hefeweizen, including it pros and
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‘Lar’-gaarden 2017: Belgian Witbier
An updated version of my Hoegaarden clone, Lar-Gaarden, for 2017. New hops, new mash temperature, and an all around better video and recipe all make
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