Messages

1

Equipment and Software / Re: Oh no! All grain!?!?

« on: September 12, 2012, 03:01:46 AM »

The big difference between a cooler and a pot is ease of use (in the beginning) and cost. A cooler tun normally will run less than $100 buying everything new where most kettles start at that price point. The cooler has the advantage of being insulated completely making holding temps easy and you really don't have to worry about where you place it (on the ground, stand, table, etc). The downside of a cooler is it is limited in doing complex mashs (need to do decot. or multiple infusions) and has a volume limit (limiting the number of infusion you can do to hit common mash temps either by the volume of water needs to be added or by temp of water that needs to be added).

A pot on the other hand eliminates the downsides of a cooler in being able to be heated, but it is more difficult to maintain a constant mash temp. A burner is nice here to both heat the strike water and keep it off the ground. Then you also have the option of rims herms and dfrims, which I a completely different discussion. I run a df(direct fire) rims and it is nice to have no real worry about missing temps either way, either add heat or add water.

As for pump march pumps are the standard for brewing on the hot side atleast. Most of the chigger pumps say that they are not to be used with boiling liquid. An for chiller, well it depend on batch size. For 5g batches immersion chillers are great and affordable. For 10 and especially larger batches, plate chillers are the better option (remember that the chiller will displace some volume so 10g batch in a 12.5g kettle with 100' 1/2" chiller could get messy). The biggest draw back to plate chillers is their ability to get clogged without taking some extra precautions (hop sacks, filter of some sort aka hop back with hops or rice hulls).

Best advice is use what you like and are comfortable with, also go bigger than what you expect you will need to save cash when you want to brew more later.

2

Equipment and Software / Re: Best wort chiller for the money?

« on: August 31, 2012, 03:24:48 AM »

Hop backs work great for filters for plate chillers. I'm pluming one in after my pump before the chiller (the standard for pumps atleast). Depending on what one you use you can use rice hull instead of hops to filter the wort when you do non hoppy beers.

Yes, but you need whole hops for a hop back, no?

Also, rice hulls are not as efficient as hops for a filter medium. So I would be slightly concerned with debris getting in.

Yes you do need to use leaf hops for it. Rice hulls also get bagged when being used as a filter medium to prevent them from flowing out of the hop back. Also you can use more(by weight) rice hulls than hoos to increase the filtering capability of them. It was the most suggested way when I was looking at how to prevent stuff from going into the chiller.

3

Equipment and Software / Re: Best wort chiller for the money?

« on: August 29, 2012, 12:05:35 PM »

Hop backs work great for filters for plate chillers. I'm pluming one in after my pump before the chiller (the standard for pumps atleast). Depending on what one you use you can use rice hull instead of hops to filter the wort when you do non hoppy beers.

4

Equipment and Software / Re: Fryer for boils

« on: August 08, 2012, 12:20:54 PM »

Fermcap also seems to be degraded when exposed to longer boils (90-120 min). I recently did a batch where I over sparge by alot (though the ph and gravity wee all still above the warning area [1.018 and ph was around 5.5]). I ended up with about 9-11g of liquid for a 5.5g batch. I ended up boiling for roughly 4 hrs and had to add 2 additions of fermcap, since the first stopped after 90-120 minute mark.

5

Equipment and Software / Re: Immersion chiller question

« on: July 31, 2012, 01:44:07 PM »

Not much to go on as to specifics

I have a 50 ft 1/2 in chiller. Wort is recirculated with my March pump so that it whirlpools around the chiller. Running the cooling water wide open I can chill a 10 gallon batch to 65 in a little less than 15 min in the winter when the tap water is cold. In the summer I can get to 100F fairly quick, but need to use an ice bath and pond pump if the tap water is >70F.

Running slow will minimize the water used.
Running fast will minimize the time. Read my post.

Since water is cheap, I choose to minimize my time.

Winter cooling is about 5 minutes, considering I have to drive the hose while I'm mashing and boiling. In the summer.
In the summer(as I described) I don't need a pump or ice bath to get to pitching temps just go clean something while I wait.

I do agree that water is cheap, but for the same cost of a decedent pump I can brew an addition 20-30gallons of beer...... I'll chose beer. Also it's one less thing to worry about(not worrying if I have enough ice).

6

Equipment and Software / Re: Immersion chiller question

« on: July 31, 2012, 07:09:32 AM »

I run the cooling water through as slow as possible. The point of a chiller is to remove heat through conduction into the coil and then from the coil to the water. With this contact time is good; the longer you have the wort in contact with the coil and the coil in contact with the water (not total volume, but one specific amount eg: quart A of total) the more heat you will remove. This work till you hit you ground water temp, well close to it.

Two batches ago(middle to end of June) it took me 21 gallons to cool 6gallons of wort to pitching temp using my 50' 3/8 coil. I did not measure my ground water temp, but I can say I use city water and we were in the middle of a heat wave (over 90 for 3 or more consecutive days). Total time was between 30-45 minutes most of which was going from 85-70.

7

Equipment and Software / Re: Fryer for boils

« on: July 26, 2012, 09:29:33 AM »

http://www.homebrewfinds.com/2012/07/125-gallon-kettle-and-propane-burner.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HomebrewFinds+%28Homebrew+Finds%29&m=1

12.5g bot and burner came up on homebrew finds today.

8

Equipment and Software / Re: Stir plate wont mix a 5l. flask

« on: July 17, 2012, 12:05:17 PM »

Most of the homebrew comercial stir plates use two small magnets that only hold a 1" bar well. Though a 1" bar will not stir 5l by any means.

Best option would be to look for a lab surplus stir/hot plate since they have an actual bar magnet and will work with bars from 2mm to 3inches. If that isn't possible you can build one using 2 bar magnets (think for expansion for larger bars) that will hold anything from 1inch to how ever big the bar magnets span.

9

Equipment and Software / Re: Hop spider design

« on: July 09, 2012, 07:10:04 AM »

Instead of carriage/eye bolts you could use the create a bolt kit. Te threaded rod comes in ss(or galvanized so watch which one you grab) and up to 18" long, though commonly they are 12". Total cost may be slight higher than a bolt, but it's 100% customizable. The hardware also comes in a kit with all the washers lock washers and nuts you need and are numbered to match the rod.

10

Equipment and Software / Re: Tired of crappy therm and hydrometer

« on: May 21, 2012, 01:01:44 PM »

Here's the link to the ones I use at work, https://us.vwr.com/store/catalog/product.jsp?catalog_number=89095-638. None of them are cheap, especially not $7, but for home brewing you don't need something that accurate, just don't look to get it from a reputable science ware supplier.

11

Equipment and Software / Re: Tired of crappy therm and hydrometer

« on: May 21, 2012, 12:51:18 PM »

I'm willing to bet you don't mash at 32F!  I've found that using a freezing/boiling "calibration" can leave you way off the mark at mash temps.  I got a calibrated lab reference thermometer and use it to calibrate my brewing thermometers at 150F.

Thats a safe bet, no doubt. Where did you get the lab reference thermometer?

Just know for a calibrated traceable reference thermometer from a scientific supplier, such as VWR or sigma, expect to pay alot. I had to order 3 for where I work and the total was somewhere in the $500 and above range.

12

Equipment and Software / Re: volume gauge

« on: April 16, 2012, 03:20:06 AM »

They do sell a keg pressure gauge but since volume is dependent on 2 things (temp and pressure) probably not. If you want, make sure you have a thermometer in the fridge with the beer so you can get a good temp reading. You could try attaching a valve stem to the end a hose and Che k the pressure to make sure the regulator is functioning properly.

13

Equipment and Software / Re: how big of burner

« on: April 14, 2012, 04:33:34 AM »

He two questions you need to answer first are:
A) how long do you plan on staying there?
B) do you plan on brewing for a long time.

If the answer to these are yes, go as big as you can220k-600k burners to allow for future expansion. The other nice thing is even going electric, you always have the burner as a back up and if a point in time the size of your batches becomes large enough that you need to run additional 220 lines or your electrical panel runs out of space you have the burner there already to transition to.

14

Equipment and Software / Re: Hop Rocket

« on: March 27, 2012, 06:07:58 AM »

Some of the local craft brewers around me gave method advice " there are far more important things to worry about than hsa." in this case clogging the chiller would be the biggest. The first time my friend used it he didnt use hop sacks and clogged the chiller about a quarter of the way into his 15g batch. Needless to say it was no where near what he wanted.
The risk:reward of pumping hot wort through hops is acceptable compared to clogging the chiller. It also prevents excess break and other material from entering the chiller giving less risk of bacteria growing in the chiller, surviving sanitizer and infecting the beer.

15

Equipment and Software / Re: OK I really screwed up...

« on: March 24, 2012, 05:19:32 AM »

I'd try the baking soda or charcoal after the cleaning. What ever bacteria were there should be dead after sunlight,bleach, and now oxyclean, but their "by products" could be bonded to the plastic. The baking soda or charcoal will absorbe the funk and help.

Last year the freezer of my keggerator had a similar event occur and it reaked of death. Unknown to me my parents decided to store beef in the freezer, but it isn't self defrosting. Needless to say when I unplugged it for the winter and opened the door to the freezer, I was lucky to have my trash bucket next to me. Ended up cleaning it with bleach and putting a charcoal damp rid in it and about 4months later opened the door and no smell at all.