How do it know?

"How do it know?"

Beats eyeballing it.

A great question, asked often by, between, and amongst my in-laws, usually in response to some amazing mechanism or process with good results. I can't tell if these normally grammatical folks are making fun of their shore-born ancestors or reveling in a shared wonder with their roots.

But for me, I'm asking the question to make a point, mostly to myself, about some of my assumptions. In my last post, I bemoaned my poor efficiency in brewing lately. But even while doing so, I understood that I was making an error.

You see, I have assumed that my efficiency has been in the low 50% range, but I don't really know. That's because I haven't really had a way of measuring out strike water. I got really good at eyeballing strike water in my old system, such that I managed to hit my original gravities and in-the-fermentor volumes, but that skill has left me as I've adopted my new BIAB regime. I've tried using a bucket with gallon marks, but it's become very clear indeed that the marks on that bucket are more guidelines than accurate representations of the amount of water in the bucket. As a result, in the last two batches alone, I've ended up both with an extra two gallons (I think. probably. It looked about like two gallons) of wort after overfilling my fermenter (no wonder my gravity was a bit low) AND having a batch that put only about 4 gallons (again, probably) of beer into the fermenter.

High-tech acid-etching kit. 

Clearly, I'm not doing a great job of measuring my strike water.  It's entirely possible, at least in that batch of watered down...well...I guess it's a session-strength Oktoberfest now...that I got amazing efficiency, but just made too much beer with too little grain.

To combat this, I've acid etched the inside of my brew kettle.  This was a cool process that involved weighing out gallons of water, marking off the top of each gallon (15 times), and then using the magic of chemistry to dissolve just enough surface steel to make a pretty mark. It's not as nice as some I've seen, but I am more than pleased with the result.

Generally, volumetric marks etched on the inside of a kettle is a pretty high-end feature, so I'm especially pleased given that I did this with some electrical tape, q-tips, a 9-volt battery, and a bowl of salted vinegar. I found the technique in an online forum, where I was searching for some alternative to the stick-with-gallon-marks-cut-in-the-side method, which works for plenty of folks, but lacks the Mr. Wizard joy of inhaling vaporized chromium (probably not enough to be a problem, right?).