Recent content by BobTheFourth

I just bought Thermoworks' Therma-K, along with the same probe used on the Thermapen. In my ice water and boiling water tests, it was absolutely dead accurate. I like the Therma-K because you can swap probes on it - I also got a wire probe to stick in the mash to monitor the temp in real-time.

I have two and they both work great - no unusual noises unless I screw up and let the input flow rate drop. Defects happen with any product - why not call them and ask for an exchange? It might be good to post a picture of your plumbing though - it might have a legitimate cause.

Looks pretty nice. The only thing I'd be concerned about is the thermometer adhesive pulling off once it gets hot, given the tight curve of the pipe. If that turns out to be an issue, I suppose you could wrap the whole thing in some kind of clear tape, or even shrink-wrap.

Other than habitually leaving valves open and spilling wort on the floor, one of the dumber things I've done was try to use my hop spider bag as a trub filter by recirculating my wort through it while chilling. It blew up like a giant wort balloon. To get the wort out I had to lance it with a...

The one zachattack linked should work, but it might be too short. This one looks slightly longer: http://www.ritebrew.com/product-p/843646.htm I bought a Taprite "add-a-regulator" which included the part you're looking for. So if you need a longer one, maybe try getting in touch with Taprite...

What solution did you use? I store mine in Hanna 70300M because its available from Amazon Prime. I assume its equivalent to the Milwaukee MA9015.

I wouldn't - posts are expensive. Its really more important to have all your kegs be one or the other. Having a mix would be a pain. It seems pin-lock kegs are actually cheaper now, so I'd just stick with them. Fridge should be fine. A chest freezer could hold more kegs, but then you'd...

It will probably work. If you wanted to save even the tiny bit of CO2 it would require, you could connect a gas QD with another dangling tube and just blow in it really hard to get the siphon started. Or use one of those manual air-mattress pumps or something. But, CO2 is really cheap - a $20...

Most kettles specifically indicate in the instructions not to use the handles to carry them while full. Even my Blichmann, which is in no way a "cheap" kettle, says they are not designed for that use. Regardless of whether the handles can hold against that much weight, its extremely dangerous...

How full is the keezer? If its mostly empty, adding some "thermal ballast" may help this work better. Also, how are you taking the temperature for the keezer thermostat? If you've just modified the built-in one, that probably won't cut it for this purpose. Using an external thermostat with...

Chugger with an SS head should be the first and last pump you'll need. Unless you need 2, then the first, second and last.

Maybe its just the rubber on the outside that still smells?

I have a PH56... that I killed by using it too many times on mash-temperature wort. It was a good meter while it worked! Now it won't even calibrate. EDIT: I just looked up the cost for a replacement electrode - its pretty reasonable at $26 from Amazon.

The easiest way would be to get a basic kegging system and a beer gun. If you intended to bottle all your beer, you can just use the keg as a fancy bottling bucket. Or you can force-carb and then bottle what you want. The beer gun lets you inject CO2 into the bottle, then fill with beer from...

Nice. I did something similar, but I already had a 3-way CO2 manifold, so I got an extra 1/4" valve to screw into the end of it (the port generally used to connecting it to another manifold), then connected the beer gun gas line to that. I just cut the beer gun's gas hose about 6" from the...