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Another option to decrease the lag time is to use an immersion element BribieG. When I am in a hurry, it really helps to get the urn up to the boil quickly, but you need to keep an eye on it when it gets close as it can go ballistic with 4800W going! I tend to use an immersion thermometer with...

Nah, not me BribieG, born and bred in Adelaide, and no Italian in the family lineage (that I know of anyway). cheers, Crundle

Thank you good sir! Now I can brew on! Crundle

Hi all, I have made over 50 brews now in a bit over a year of having my Crown urn (BIAB) but recently, one of the kids was hitting a tennis ball against a wall near the urn, and the ball must have hit the sightglass, and it cracked near the base where the sightglass screws into an elbow. Has...

The boil on the Birko is good from what I am told, so that part of it should be fine, just target that final volume and 1.050 is more than achievable. cheers, Crundle

If you are using the same type of yeast from one brew to the next, you can reuse the yeast cake from a lower gravity brew into a higher gravity brew, giving you the cell count and yeast health you need to work in higher gravity brews. Crundle

Just a consideration with the rice addition, if it is still hot, as in just cooked, it will effect your mash temperature slightly, not much of an issue for that amount, but when I do a Bribie fake light lager with 2.5kg of grain and 1kg of rice, it raises the temperature by 1 degree so I have to...

The final volume will be the biggest factor in hitting your target gravity from my experiences with an urn and BIAB. What type of urn is it? Mine is a Crown, which has a fairly poor boil unless it is modded to remove the anti-boil dry protection, which improves the boil markedly. Let me know...

At first I was using the element on the urn to keep the temperature stable, but this only heated up the grain at the bottom of the urn, which acted like a blanket trapping the heat, so my temps were in fact far too low above the grain bed. I switched to BribieG's method of wrapping the urn in a...

There is no substitute for experience in brewing I have found. My first attempts had woeful efficiency, but as time went by, and with some input from Pistol Patch, I was able to get my efficiency up to a happy 75%. I was worried about the effects of no chill on hop bitterness also when I...

I BIAB and no chill and keep all of my hop additions as per normal, not making any adjustment for no chilling - except for flame out hops. For my flame out hops, I wait until it is time to keg/bottle my fermented beer, and then add 300ml of hop tea using a coffee plunger that has had the flame...

Mine stays on constantly, 4 kegs connected to it in a kegerator. Crundle

Hmm, seems I didn't get back to it after all, but here goes.... It had a minerally taste to it for the first 6 weeks it was in the keg, but then eased up and became quite drinkable, with a hint of 'something different' about it. I think the mineral taste came from the shells. I had one of...

A one hour boil WILL kill the nasties that may already be in the wort, but then when the wort cools back down to a certain temperature range, the nasties may get into the wort again and multiply. As the wort cools, it will draw air into the container it is in (unless it is in a sealed cube)...

If you are starting out in kegging, the best way to go is to set your regulator to serving pressure at the temperature the keg will be served and stored at and leave it for 2 weeks. We all get impatient, and have done what you have done, but if you can leave it for that amount of time, pour a...

I have done this many times in the past (not best practice but sometimes it just has to be done to get a brew done at all in my house) and have not had any issues. The one caveat I would suggest is to get it boiling first, then leave it covered and insulated to keep the temperature as high as...

Due to some emergencies cropping up from time to time, I have had to do something similar, and have had no problems so far. It is probably not best practice, but if you have to do it, then so be it. I would suggest that it is best to mash, sparge, then get the wort up to the boil, and then...

Some say yes, some say no. I use a hop sock, so I don't have to worry about hops remaining in my cubes while they cool, adding to perceived bitterness (no flame war please). So for me, I will let the hot break into the cube if the cube has any room left, but not if I am over the cube volume...

I didn't check the gravity during the boil, as I only have a hydrometer at this stage, and didn't want to melt the tube as others have done. For the Doppelbock, I used a lower efficiency figure in Beersmith to allow for getting a lower efficiency and it ended up about on target at 8.5 % (and I...

In my 40 litre Crown urn, I pretty much always use 30 litres of water to mash with, and then squeeze the bag to see how much water I have lost. I always aim to get back to at least 30 litres pre boil, so I will sparge the squeezed bag with enough boiled water to get me back to 30 litres...