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Author Topic: What's the product that upon purchase you've been most disappointed with...  (Read 13284 times)

Offline reverseapachemaster

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Re: What's the product that upon purchase you've been most disappointed with...
« Reply #15 on: December 26, 2013, 08:59:32 am »
My first kettle was an eight gallon aluminum tamale steamer. It's too big to use easily on my coil stove and the high surface to volume ratio results in an excessively high evaporation rate. I downgraded to a smaller kettle for my smaller, stovetop batches and bought a turkey fryer for larger batches after damaging one of the coils on the tamale steamer's last brew day. Now it's used for storage in my brew equipment storage closet.
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Offline klickitat jim

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Re: What's the product that upon purchase you've been most disappointed with...
« Reply #16 on: December 26, 2013, 10:19:43 am »
Major,
I might give it one more shot. After not being happy with it I switched to small amounts of chocolate or black for color. I like that. But I guess I should give carared a fair shake sometime

Offline kylekohlmorgen

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Re: What's the product that upon purchase you've been most disappointed with...
« Reply #17 on: December 26, 2013, 11:58:32 am »
Oxygen stone with barbed connection.

Even with rigorous cleaning, it doesn't take long for the rubber tubing to show signs of mold.

Its a PITA to store and sanitize.

Even with a good worm clamp, the stone can come loose from the tubing. Hopefully you remember to pick it out after transfer!

Lesson learned: go with the stone on the stainless rod!
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Offline passlaku

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Re: What's the product that upon purchase you've been most disappointed with...
« Reply #18 on: December 26, 2013, 02:50:08 pm »
I bought the FermTech Wine Thief and never really used it.   I also got those BrewBalls for Christmas one year but never got around to using them either. 

Offline mugwort

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Re: What's the product that upon purchase you've been most disappointed with...
« Reply #19 on: December 26, 2013, 03:20:00 pm »
Oxygen stone with barbed connection.

Even with rigorous cleaning, it doesn't take long for the rubber tubing to show signs of mold.

Its a PITA to store and sanitize.

Even with a good worm clamp, the stone can come loose from the tubing. Hopefully you remember to pick it out after transfer!

Lesson learned: go with the stone on the stainless rod!

Yeah I no longer use mine.  Will gift it to a brew bud some time soon.

The stainless rod to stone is the way to go with the option to boil.
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Offline majorvices

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Re: What's the product that upon purchase you've been most disappointed with...
« Reply #20 on: December 27, 2013, 08:59:55 am »

Major,
I might give it one more shot. After not being happy with it I switched to small amounts of chocolate or black for color. I like that. But I guess I should give carared a fair shake sometime

I'm not a huge advocate for cara red so take it or leave it as you will. I'm just saying if you expected it to act like c40 your going to be disappointed.

Wyermann says it can be used up to 25% of the grist so I may try a small batch 25% carared and 75% pils and see how I like it. On the Belgian red I designed a few years ago has about 17% and it is a really special beer in my estimation.

Offline denny

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Re: What's the product that upon purchase you've been most disappointed with...
« Reply #21 on: December 27, 2013, 09:14:33 am »
Carared,  it's not red and C40 tastes better. I'm saving it for a day that I run out of chicken scratch.

I'll take it!
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Offline denny

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Re: What's the product that upon purchase you've been most disappointed with...
« Reply #22 on: December 27, 2013, 09:16:48 am »
How much is enough. I think I used about a pound in an APA.

At least 20% of your total grist.
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Offline majorvices

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Re: What's the product that upon purchase you've been most disappointed with...
« Reply #23 on: December 27, 2013, 02:40:01 pm »
Oxygen stone with barbed connection.

Even with rigorous cleaning, it doesn't take long for the rubber tubing to show signs of mold.

Its a PITA to store and sanitize.

Even with a good worm clamp, the stone can come loose from the tubing. Hopefully you remember to pick it out after transfer!

Lesson learned: go with the stone on the stainless rod!

+1 - and not only that, you can spin the stone/rod around and get better diffusion into wort (least it feels like you do). Got mine at William's brewing years and years ago and still use it. Easy to sanitize, too. Just drop it in boil last 20 minutes.

Offline klickitat jim

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Re: What's the product that upon purchase you've been most disappointed with...
« Reply #24 on: December 27, 2013, 08:48:14 pm »
I'll give CaraRed a second try. Might try some in a Scotty

Offline kgs

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Re: What's the product that upon purchase you've been most disappointed with...
« Reply #25 on: December 28, 2013, 10:13:56 am »
The immersion chiller is what I regret. I used it once and was shocked by how much water it required (I measured it). I can chill my small batches in the sink with a cool water bath followed by an ice water bath and get the wort under 70 degrees very quickly with occasional whirlpooling. I've hung on to the chiller because I haven't ruled out building a recirculating chiller one of these days.


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Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: What's the product that upon purchase you've been most disappointed with...
« Reply #26 on: December 28, 2013, 10:59:51 am »
I have a pond pump to recirculate ice water to get down to below tap temperatures, it works but is sort of wimpy at 550GPH. If I was to do it over, it would get a utility pump that is in the 1200  to 1500 GPH range to get the flow rate through the hoses and 50 ft. of chiller up and increase the heat transfer.
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Offline AmandaK

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Re: What's the product that upon purchase you've been most disappointed with...
« Reply #27 on: December 28, 2013, 11:31:08 am »
I'll second (third?) the oxygen wand with barbed connection. I eventually traded it for a corny keg since it just sat in the closet.
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Offline yso191

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Re: What's the product that upon purchase you've been most disappointed with...
« Reply #28 on: December 28, 2013, 11:46:42 am »
I'd have to say two: first is the little red oxygen bottle regulator that was way too expensive even if it worked well, which it didn't.  The other is carboys.  Seriously, who thought that design up?  I love the Speidel fermenter I have now.
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Offline klickitat jim

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Re: What's the product that upon purchase you've been most disappointed with...
« Reply #29 on: December 28, 2013, 01:01:44 pm »
I'm glad to hear that. I've never owned the upside down glass conical, and I am convinced that my mix stir aeration method works just fine. I recently listened to a Palmer talk on aeration and he said you can over oxygenate and it's just as bad as under aeration. If it's not broke done break it.