Recent content by brewpal

After flushing and cleaning mine goes in the oven at 450 for 1-2 hours to dry/sanitize before storing. Sani before using on brew day of course. As noted, keep hops out during chilling.

For homebrew systems clear tubing gives you the advantage of spotting beer that may be accidentally pushed back into your gas lines from the keg (it happens). With a red line you will never know. For others I have replaced old red tubing that had some nasty mold from beer that the owner...

I recently upgraded my NG burner from 32 to 44 tips. Does a respectable job getting 75 gal in my 80 gal kettle to a boil. I would not go with anything smaller unless you have a ton of time on brew day to sit around staring at your pot while it slowing heats up. Bought it from Glacier...

I used ebay to find a lovejoy couper set that matched the diameter of my Maltmill shaft. I used a cut-off bolt on the drill side of the coupler in the drill chuck. Mount the drill on the same board as the mill with the drill and mill shaft lined up. Keep a spare lovejoy spider handy as they...

+1 for the Harbor Freight drill. Easily mounted to a board. Use a lovejoy coupler between the drill and the mill so you do not tear up the mill shaft. Loud but plenty of torque. Likely run 4,000 lbs through my mill so far on the one drill.

I remove my thermometer before drying the plate chiller in the oven, but teflon tape does fine even at 450 deg for an hour. Consider an arrangement that lets you take all fittings off the plate chiller to allow moisture to escape during drying. My stone detaches and goes in the oven...

I have used hot water tank water for all stages of brewing for several years now with great success. Last year I replaced the gas hot water heater with a larger modern one and added a convenience hot water faucet in the garage using pex. On brew day I crank the tank to max and and get 150+...

Just a follow-up to an old thread: After much searching around I recently located an appropriate handle for the man-cave facilities located just off the brewery space. It has provided many opportunities for amusing jokes. :cross:

Go for it. Scorching will not be an issue unless the flame is licking the bottom of the drum.

Install a shut-off at the hard pipe then a gas quick-disconnect. I use 1/2" rubber heater hose sold by the foot at the hardware store. It is disconnected and purged after each brew session before hit is hung up. Working great for 5 years now with no issues. Go with the larger diameter...

I have used them in both ball and pin-lock kegs. Better than the originals. Wish I had a bag of them years ago as it would have saved me many headaches. Well worth it.

Herbie Clips work great on silicone hose to hold them onto barbs. Easy to install and remove in a moment. No need for tools.

I have that same drill for my Schmidling malt mill. Works great. I did put a lovejoy coupler between the drill and mill shaft to eliminate wear. Noisy enough that ear protection is desirable.

I had a similar issue with the lid until I made sure the gasket was seated properly and tightened the sealing ring as tight as it could go. I build a dolly with beefy wheels that allows me to roll it into the walk-in from the brewing area. Never looked back.

I recently used my new duda plate chiller for the first time. Before brewday, I ran several gallons of hot oxyclean through the chiller and plenty of clean water to rinse. The sticker on top was removed so I could place the entire unit in the oven to dry/sanitize. Worked better than...