+1

No. As was said above, fermentation creates enough CO2 to fill in the headspace and since CO2 is heavier than air it will cover and protect the beer unless you move the fermenter. I don't secondary either so everything is kept pretty safe.

I use a 5 gallon carboy for my 3 gallon batches with no issues. If you are using a wheat beer yeast you should probably have extra room anyway.

If you want a true circular hole a hole saw or step bit would be the best choices.

I have a pseudo Brew Easy setup with a 10g Boilermaker as the mash tun and a 15g with 240V coil for the boil kettle. I use the "All Grain" method in my recipes and get about 60-70% ending kettle efficiency depending on the amount of grain. I boil off at a rate of 1.5 gallons per hour.

The longest term beers I make is are my Oaktoberfest and Barleywine. I put oak in the kegs for each so they need to sit a few months in keg for the oak flavor to develop and mellow before I serve them. I make the Oaktoberfest in the July timeframe and put on service in late September. I don't...

Chinook. Often described as piney or resiney. I make a singe hopped chinook IPA that is pretty good.

I once had a gauge leaking on a brand new secondary regulator. I had to dunk it in water to find it. After replacing that gauge my system has been fine.

The risk of saving wort by canning is infecting the canned wort with botulism spores, same as in canning fruit, etc. To kill the spores you need an acidic wort (lower than 5 pH) or cook in a pressure cooker to get a higher temperature. It doesn't matter if the wort is pre-boiled before...

The problem is the start-up amperage. The only issue would be if both started at the exact same time, which is rare. Try it and see if the breaker trips often. You will probably be fine.

It really isn't practical for a home brewer to measure bitterness. It requires specialized lab equipment. White labs sells a service that will test your beer for IBU and ABV. You send them a sample and they provide a report: http://www.whitelabs.com/other-products ... sample-kit Color...

For a 1.050 beer, I would pitch 150M - 200M cells (I tend to pitch heavy: 0.75 - 1.0 M/ml/P), so I would make a starter or buy two vials. You can split the yeast across the 5 one gallon batches, but swirl the yeast each time to make sure the yeast aren't all at the bottom of the vial or the...

The pitch rate should be based on OG, the amount pitched is based on pitch rate and volume. Pitch rate is the number of cells per amount of sugar per unit of volume (million cells per milliliter per degree plato). To figure out how many cells to pitch you multiply the rate times the volume and...

I don't think you will get to an ABV of 15% with the yeasts you are using. They top out around 9-11%. You might want to reduce the grain bill to shoot for the 11-12% range or consider using a wine yeast to help get the extra fermentation.

I don't think you are following. I would think anything that goes in before the boil timer starts would be included in the pre-boil gravity reading. This would include anything included in the mash and other fermentables not marked as "late addition" Anything that is added after the boil...

Seems like a weird choice. Shouldn't pre-boil values be based on everything but late additions? In a Partial Mash situation or if I added sugar while the wort is coming up to a boil (which changes the volume) I would want the calculations to include the items in at the start of the boil.

Can you add the number and letter designations to the categories and sub-categories? i.e 22. Strong American Ale 22A. Double IPA 22B. American Strong Ale

Besides the obvious answer of the beer in the glass I'm holding, I make a Troeg's Mad Elf clone: (http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/r ... actor-2-ag), and the batch I made August last year was great. I even had a 22oz bottle this August and it was still awesome.

In order to showcase the riwaka, and assuming a 1.060 - 1.070 OG, I would go with something like 60 min - 1oz - 1.5 oz Citra (need shoot for 45-55 IBU depending on OG) 10 min - 1oz Riwak (should be about 10 IBU) 0 - 2oz Riwaka That should be about .8-1.2 BU/GU ratio and focus the aroma and...

You're probably fine. Take a sample after fermentation and if you want a little more hops flavor or aroma, do a dry hop.