January 11, 2013
How to build an electric heatstick
Have you thought about switching to 5 gallon full-boil batches and have concerns about your kitchen stove’s inability to boil large volumes of liquid? Well, I’ve got a solution for you – it’s called a HEATSTICK! It’s really easy to build, and costs under $50. It works together with your kitchen stove to easily boil 7-8 gallons of wort! Here’s a list of parts: 120V screw-in water heater element. I bought a 1500 watt element at Lowes – this requires 14 gauge wires, and can run on any 15A GFCI outlet. If you want a bit more power, Home Depot […]
January 10, 2013
Review: BrewDemon Conical Fermenter (3 gallon)
I was finally able to get one of these new 2 3 gallon conical fermenters that BrewDemon is producing. There has been a lot of speculation and anticipation from much of the home brew community, at least the ones that I frequent about this new fermenter. There seems to be a lot of questions and hopefully I will be able to answer most of them here! Does Size Really Matter? One of the first thing I noticed about this thing was it’s size! It really seemed to be quite a bit larger then the Mr. Beer LBK, and there is a […]
January 10, 2013
Easy guide to wort chilling without faucet attachments
How does one use an immersion chiller with a pull-out faucet (that’s what I have), or in a situation when there’s no running water source reasonably close to brewing location? You can also use this method if your tap water is too warm and you have trouble getting your wort to pitching temps. Parts needed: Immersion chiller (super easy and cheap to make from a 20-ft roll of soft 3/8″ copper – about $15 from a home improvement store, but that’s another article). Fountain pump (200+ gph works best) – this one from Amazon would work great Vinyl tubing and […]
January 10, 2013
Some General Rules About Grains
Was at the LHBS chatting with the Local… and we started talking about grains and what we could do with them…more for informational purposes than anything else. So, as a General Rule: Any “Cara” or “Crystal” grains are “steepable”. So you don’t have to worry about a full blown Mash, just soak these in 150-ish water for at least 30 min. Dark Grains… Steepable… they’ve already been converted as it were. So trying to mash these, well.. um.. nah. You can get the same stuff your gonna get by just steeping them. As far as the rest of the […]
January 6, 2013
A Closer Look At BrewDemon
After many months of delays for a variety of reasons BrewDemon finally launched it’s product line on December 11th and started accepting orders! This is a bigger deal then you might think since they are basically re-introducing the beloved malts that were abandoned by Mr. Beer when Australia based Coopers bought out the company. The BrewDemon Malts are produced by Maltexo in New Zealand and are for the most part the same as what was once offered by Mr. Beer. There are however a few changes that make these products unique to The Demon Brewing Company. The obvious change of […]
January 4, 2013
Quick brew.
Ever been in a hurry to fill a 2.5 gallon keg? But not sure what to do? Well, it’s cold in this part of the world. And it won’t be long before your wanting to grab an nice amber to sip on. A while back, while at the local home brew store (LHBS), I was trying to figure out what to brew. I was doing a lot of Irish Stouts then, and if it was dark, I was into it. While looking at the options, I noticed a Munton’s 3.3 pound can of Hopped Amber Malt Extract. THAT got the […]
January 2, 2013
Harvesting that expensive yeast
Have you noticed how expensive yeast has gotten? I did. Ouch. So I got into harvesting that gold in a tube. There are a few things you need for this. 1: Nerve Wait, no, that’s not it. It’s easy. I stressed more then hot yeast over this until I pulled the trigger and gave it a go. What you need is a container for the unwashed yeast. (I could insert a baptismal joke here about the unwashed, but won’t) You’ll need to do a wee bit of pre-planning though. You’ll need the container. I got a few quart plastic containers […]
