Recent content by GmanNJ

I was able to get from boil to 165 in 1 minute and the cooler was still 42 degrees After 8 minutes the wort was now 98 degrees but the cooler was 79 degrees (way too warm) I am trying to use the least amount of water possible (right now 4 gal total). But I see your point on the first run thru...

wow that is a GREAT idea! thanks

glad I could help! It really fun to take to BBQs and such. No more bottles and it lets the Mad Scientist in you comes out Then if the beer is equally good- double whammy LOL! are the 74 gram CO2 the paintball canisters? For the v2.0 I got a 2.5lb refillable CO2 tank which is more than enough...

if you transfer to a secondary you can harvest the yeast then dry hop. I like my beers to fall clean so I always transfer to a secondary. Right now I have about a quart of yeast from the local brewery my friend owns. He took it from the port at the bottom of his 50 BBL conical. First he let the...

Thats the key- water conservation! The new Blichman Therminator claims that 10 gal of wort can be chilled to pitching temp with this device that uses 5 gal/min 58 degree water in 5 min. So thats 25 gallons of water IF your groundwater temp is 58 degrees!! Hence this experiment to get by with...

I had the gel packs anyway so I used them. I have been collecting water bottles for the same purpose. I will simply refreeze them when they thaw. I want to keep it as compact as I can and use as little water as possible. I dont count the water in the bottles as i will reuse them. I started on...

its 3/8" tubing and the pump has a hose barb that is stepped so it accepts a few different sizes. The plastic barb screws into the outlet of the pump (all the fittings came with the pump). The intake on the pump is all around the base. The return line (hot) just goes into the top of the cooler...

ooof...thats sounds like a total loss of good beer! I will have to look into those. Although the fountain pump is very low PSI by comparison thanks for the idea

If I was doing more than a 5 gallon batch i would probably do that Or put a secondary immersion cooler in a bucket of ice water on the return line to pre-chill the return water I think for my purposes this method will get my wort to pitching temp in less than 5 minutes I am getting ready to try...

thats how I started. Since its not a full 5 gallon I used to sanitize zip locs, fill with water and freeze. Then for cool down slice them open and plop the ice right in. It melts and brings the wort closer to the 5 gallon mark. Adding ice from a sanitized container really helped with the time...

I used to do that with zip locks. make a bunch and use those for my ice bath. I have also started to fill disposable water bottles with water and freeze them. Keeping them till they thaw and then putting back in the freezer when done to reuse is not that time consuming. I have a bunch of the...

thats a thought because I like to reuse my water. I would need to refill the cooler but most times the tap water is cool enough. thanks for the input!

Let me now how it turns out! many ways to skin the proverbial cat ;) good luck

in the brew system I am building (future article) I am using about 4 ft of tubing per side so I am trying to minimize that distance. I did not want to have to insulate the cold line (which is another way to correct for the thermal loss I know returning the water is counter productive but the...

very cool (pun intended!) As an engineer I like to add the proper math for the proof LOL! Obviously as the temps get close together you cannot transfer that thermal energy quickly My first go to was to replace the frozen gels with more to keep the cooler temp as low as possible. I have a freezer...