Never filtered the tap water in any brew I've made, Brisbane tap water is pretty decent already. I do use potassium met to remove chloramines from it though. These days though I make distilled water and use that so I can dial in specific water profiles.
In any case, whether or not it's my...
We're in our new house now, put a post up in the local community page and got a couple of replies. Said I was brewing Saturday just gone and crickets. I'll try again next brew day... in the meantime it's getting dumped in the front garden (we don't really go out there much).
Maybe not for Fermentis yeasts but oftentimes the amount you get in liquid vials or smack packs isn't enough to direct pitch into a full size batch. I also harvest yeast from starters to reuse later, might be a little more work but it saves a fuckload of money.
Depends on the age I guess. I have an old Frigidaire that dates back to the 1950s that I'm using as a brew fridge, and it has no trouble dropping a brew to zero for a cold crash any time of the year. Granted, at this time of year it takes a little longer, but it still gets there. The only thing...
I use my fermentation fridge to cold crash. Currently got a brew sitting on zero degrees in there, due to be kegged in a week or so. A freezer would do it easier but it can be done in a fridge as well.
I agree with goatchop. I've been no-chilling for over 6 years, probably done over 100 batches this way and have never noticed astringency like that in any of them once they are carbonated and ready to drink. I have noticed at times that FG samples taste more bitter/astringent than intended and I...
Yeah I find the kegerator looks pretty good inside. 3 kegs is usually enough for me although I keep one of them on soda water permanently so it's really only two kegs of beer. Most of them work fine at the same pressure so if one runs out and I put another one in, nothing changes.
However, I...
I'd get two fridges, one to ferment in and one for chilling and serving kegs from. That's what I have currently and it works much better than it would trying to ferment and drink from the same fridge.
I haven't got any spare beer line anyway so I'll still have to buy more to do it, might as well go the 6mm. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out how full it is either as I keg my beers straight from cold crashing, condensation should give a pretty good idea especially if the transfer is slow...
This is next on my list of brewery upgrades, probably about the first thing I'll sort out once we move house in a couple of weeks. Just need one of those bottling wand thingys and some 6mm line which shouldn't be too hard to get.