Recent content by keith1664

How hard? A lot of home brewers over here have hard water, usual practice here is to use acids to reduce the alkalinity. Either one known as CRS (or AMS) which is a blend of Sulphuric and Hydrochloric acids, this does the job. The more hands on use Sulphuric and Hydrochloric separately to hit...

I don't want to die of old age so drink most of it. Mind you I'm English so try to keep it below 5%.

No Boddingtons ads yet?

I did buy one of those, then found it was only of use with a k type thermocouple and not the pt100 probe I bought for it! My tip is to read the description carefully and make sure that a - it'll work with your chosen sensor b - it'll give the output you need

+1 on the immersion chiller with a stirring feature. The reason I've not gone for a plate chiller is cleaning / sanitising, so you could look at that. However if you'd really like to think outside the box the one thing I'd really like is a chiller that doesn't use water as a coolant. I don't...

Yes Revvy, the Burco tea urns and their like are also frequently converted for brewing, using the kettle elements I've mentioned in various forms of plastic bucket is also very popular (well you have to get your danger fix somewhere!) Like somebody mentioned earlier, we don't tend to fry...

Yup, but it's quick and 95% efficient!

I cheat with the strike water and fill up my HLT from my kitchen hot water tap (faucet), I'm then up to temp in about 10-15 minutes.

Most of the kettles over here have those elements as well, it tends to be the budget kettles with this type. Bizarrely enough it's cheaper to buy the kettles to butcher than to buy elements on their own, by a factor of four! And no, they're not zinc plated.

...and we don't drink much tea in this house either, I've always been a coffee drinker!

The elements I use are 2.4kw, 3 kw are also available. I've not timed them to the boil but it's boiling before I've finished sparging, I then turn off one element and can maintain the boil on the other. I also have 2 elements in my HLT, this I fill up from my domestic hot water, these will bring...

I've been reading your forum for a few months now, mainly because there's not enough on the UK forums to keep me amused. The control panels I've been looking at are fantastic, but one thing that confused me was the heating elements you use over there. So I've just done a quick google and found...

Does English beer count? 80 UK gallons, which are worth more than your piddly US gallons so call it 88 ;o) 11843

Some strains of yeast will clear quicker than others. If you want to accelerate proceeedings you could try either adding finings or putting your beer somewhere cold.... or both.

Can't see your problem, just brew a few batches that need a good ageing!