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What's brewing?

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oatmeal stout, not too bad for a Mr beer kit!!!
 
Since the Czech Pils was brewed, I have made an American Barleywine, a Czech dark lager I dumped on the Pils yeast cake, and today was an Oktoberfest/Marzen. Sampled the pilsner and barleywine while brewing. Awesome stuff, even as young as it is. Will revisit the pilsner in a few weeks.

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Brew club meeting last night. Sampled a dozen different brown ales and we started a yeast experiment. Couple of American strains, English, and German. Made a 25gal batch and split it up into carboys. We're going to check the effects of various ale strains on the same wort at the same temp.
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I fuggin hosed a 15gal batch last sunday....

first time i've shitup a batch pre-ferment in forever.....at least ten years...

My immersion chiller had a small split in the coil i didn't see. I think it's simply do to too many heat-cool cycles over the years....I've done probably over 125-150 batches with it. I set the flow after flame-out, which is usually the point i walk away for 15-20 and begin clean up in the brew house.

I came back to the tree after 10-15 minutes, and the boil kettle was over flowing......it was all over.

fuq!!!!!!!!!!!!!

for what it's worth, i'll have you guys know that beersmith2 is the ULTIMATE software for mac.

Kent place/beer alchemey can kiss my ass.
 
I'd have thought that even a few hundred heating/cooling cycles from boiling to just above freezing shouldn't affect copper tubing like that. Still sucks. Going to silver solder it, braze it, sleeve it, or just replace the whole thing? Shoot, that section of tubing is ballooned, isn't it?
 
I will probably make new, and repair the existing one for use in a mash tun herms system ive always wanted to for maintaing mash temp on cold days, and for step mash for lagers
 
Now there's a good idea. You already know that tubing is suspect, and using it for mashing will drop the temperature extremes by 40 degrees F.
 
True... you'll want something a little warmer than your mashout.

I think I'm going to build a manual direct fired RIMS when I put together my brew sculpture, with an eye towards possibly adding a controller.
 
ChiXJeff said:
True... you'll want something a little warmer than your mashout.

I think I'm going to build a manual direct fired RIMS when I put together my brew sculpture, with an eye towards possibly adding a controller.
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I direct fire now.....for step and mashout.....VERY carefully.

I have 100,000 btu nat gas burners, so i gotta watch it.

btw....hell with the immersion chiller.

I decided to shave time off my brewing process with this, 50 bucks more than i would have spent on an XL immersion chiller:

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I just finished bending the bracket, have to weld it to my tree tonight.
 
Scorching the wort in the bottom of the mash tun in a direct fired RIMS is a major concern.

One of the things that's concerned me about plate chillers (okay, any chiller where the wort flows through) is keeping it clean. I've heard about folks who pull the gaskets out of the connections and throw their plate chillers in the oven on a clean cycle.

John Blichmann is a bit of a character. For the most part, everything he sells is overengineered and overbuilt. Wish I could afford it.
 
ChiXJeff said:
Scorching the wort in the bottom of the mash tun in a direct fired RIMS is a major concern.

One of the things that's concerned me about plate chillers (okay, any chiller where the wort flows through) is keeping it clean. I've heard about folks who pull the gaskets out of the connections and throw their plate chillers in the oven on a clean cycle.

John Blichmann is a bit of a character. For the most part, everything he sells is overengineered and overbuilt. Wish I could afford it.
Click to expand...

dig.

where are you at with your stuff?

did you get started on a concept/design/build?

still waiting for less limited to get his zhit together....

i gave him a good head start....he's burning daylight.

I wanna see what a guy that makes awesome extract can do at the all grain level.

I'd like to see him hand over his NB kit woobie too.

tell him i said so.
 
ECKSJAY said:
Triple decoction mashes, you pansies. Come brew by hand with us Czech kids. :D
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i do double d with bohemian lagers.....

I *may* do one tomorrow with my chicago lager.

doing a 15gal tomorrow and doing a 15 gal beezil-kona brew on sunday with the latest intelligence gathered from the kona brewmaster himself.

I'm 81-percent sure they changed their hop schedule during the somewhat recent hop shortage...

lesslimited's buddy got some awesome insider info i want to put to the test.
 
Beezil said:
dig.

where are you at with your stuff?

did you get started on a concept/design/build?

still waiting for less limited to get his zhit together....

i gave him a good head start....he's burning daylight.

I wanna see what a guy that makes awesome extract can do at the all grain level.

I'd like to see him hand over his NB kit woobie too.

tell him i said so.
Click to expand...
I'm still thinking, but it's going to be a 3 station single tier, aka Brutus 10 style. 6 feet long, stations on probably 24" centers, 2x2x0.120" T304 stainless, with 15" or 16" openings for burners, and mounted on 2"x6" wheels. Top surface to be probably 20-24" from the ground, with mountings for a couple of March pumps on the lower level. I'll probably get the basic sculpture welded together this summer, not sure when I'll be able to finish outfitting it. Oh, and 3 burners. I've got a Bayou Classic SG14 burner that seems to work quite well, much more efficient than the usual turkey fryer burner and rather controllable. One of my goals is to be able to hose this thing down with a pressure washer (yes, that means the March pumps will be removable,) besides, I just like stainless for this sort of thing.

At least initially, I'll continue to use my immersion chiller, but I'll have it set up to add a plate chiller (or a Phillzilla, etc.) at the drop of a hat.
 
Beer pr0n FTW.

All this talk of stainless and Blichmann products has me hot and bothered. I need something to cool me down. How about a young Oktoberfest? :)

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Beezil said:
i do double d with bohemian lagers.....

I *may* do one tomorrow with my chicago lager.

doing a 15gal tomorrow and doing a 15 gal beezil-kona brew on sunday with the latest intelligence gathered from the kona brewmaster himself.

I'm 81-percent sure they changed their hop schedule during the somewhat recent hop shortage...

lesslimited's buddy got some awesome insider info i want to put to the test.
Click to expand...

I remember the good ol' days when you used to invite me over to brew :tear:

I do need to get off my ass and finish the gas plumbing and other misc details on the all-grain rig. Extract bores me, and with the local liquor store's specials of good beer for 10-14 bucks/case, there's little motivation to put in the effort.
 
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