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After a long little one induced break I finally got another brew on yesterday. One of the things that got me interested in homebrew was the ability to make old recipes and revisit old assumed truths. This one has been on the cards for a while. Guided by examples from "Sacred and Herbal Healing...

That makes sense. It wouldn't be a great deal of extra kit to attempt either. I've got one of the little pumps that I'm considering using to pump wort about next time. so could use this to recirculate the wort during the mash which I guess would help even the temperature. Didn't consider a...

My strike water was 73C. When sparging I raised this to 80C and made sure the water on top of the grain bed didn't exceed 80C. The zapap tun setup uses two fermentation buckets, one having lots of holes to provide a false bottom. There is about 6l of space between the buckets and I added 6l of...

I was aiming for a 23l batch. Over shot on the last pot. Ideally would have had a 27l boil volume. I poured the grain in slowly and stirred while doing that. Do I need to be stirring right to the bottom of the pot or is it enough to make sure you smash up the dry lumps of grain as it goes in?

Morning all. Please can you offer some advise on improving my mash. Firstly I'm using a zapap tun and stove top boil. I continuously sparge into two small pots that I transfer into a large pot on a chair above my stove pot which I then tap into the stove pot after boil. I will upgrade to 50l...

St Helens, Merseyside

Brew day was yesterday. Here is my comments, but please be aware at the moment I think my efficiency problems are most likely due to my all-grain newbie status! In terms of dead space between the buckets this is determined by the position of your tap. As this is only on one side I decided to...

Thanks for the link. I'll have a look at that. I've found some boil time graphs that should give me an idea of how much heat is being lost from the a plain SS pot with no insulation. I'm guessing the insulation is a nice to have if it's cheap but since £1 of electricity covers running a 6kW...

So to summerise people's comments: Above and reasonably close to the heater is best for the response of the heater controller. If you were unfortunate enought to locate in a colder spot there would be a significant time delay in the effect the heater turning on and the sensor detecting a raise...

Thanks for the input. My original question refers to a Hot Liquor Tank and it may double up as a copper but not 100% settled on that yet. So, I'll need about 73C for the strike water and I'm guessing a little more for sparge. I'll read up on the specific values but will be building it to be...

High ish mileage commuter but not biker! I've got a project in the garage but it's got many more cylinders than most bikes! Seem to be following in my Dad's footsteps on that front and the beer. Alas I didn't start soon enought to learn much from him. My 11th brew is in the planning/stocking...

Milk bottle crates are great for moving bottles about. Alas the standard 0.5l beer bottles are a little taller, but the crates still stack ish! Ideal would be to make a few feet to lift the crates apart. Perhaps I'll dust off the extrusion printer here at work sometime soon! :-D

Finally getting ready to do my brew Wednesday next week. Thought my upgrade to all grain was only going to cost me £30 until I realised I needed a container to catch the sparge run-off! Doh! What efficiency did you achieve? Planning to mash for an hour with 73C strike water aiming for 68C...

How long do the kegged beers last? I went for bottles originally so I could keep them for many months before I risked them going stale. On the flip side my current brews are 23l batches - aiming for 40 bottles. How consistent can you guys do two consecutive smaller batches, say 10 litres? I'd...

I've got a 32A supply in the garage and was looking at various heater elements on ebay. Notice how many of them are 220VAC? From working on industrial machines a while back I'm aware that you can normally allow +/- 10% on the voltage, so 220 should be fine for 198 - 242VAC. I've two concerns...

Hi All, What height is the temperature sensor mounted relative to the total boil height? Is there much temperature variance in height or does the vigorous convections in the boil sort that? I'm tempted to mount at the same level as the elements (thinking 2* 3kW or 3 * 2.0kW - I've a 32A supply...

Looks like the benefits of quick cooling for the cold break has been over egged! As I've already got the cooler I'll persevere a little longer in trying to get it running well. I'll certainly divert the upgraderitus attention away from the cross flow heat exchangers!

Thanks all. I'll have a read through the link, and re-use of the water for cleaning is a good idea. Interesting comment about the excellent cold break from an overnight cool. I was under the impression the quicker the cool, the better the cold break.

Just done a few checks and ignoring the density change in water from 95 to 80 (less than 3%) you need a cooling capacity of just over 2.2kW to cool 25 litres of hot water from 95 to 18C in an hour. My pump running flat out could deliver 12 l/min. Comparing the outlet to inlet temperature if...

Morning all, Can someone please point me towards an article or thread that discusses the most efficient use of an immersion chiller? I've got a small pump that I use at the moment and generally recirculate water from my sink through the coil and back to the sink. If I were pouring water...