Recent content by natehoekstra

In!!

In! Another great giveaway!

In!

Thanks for the interesting article! I've been considering an electric indoor system for the same reason -- I'm tough enough to sit outside for 3 hours to do a brew when it's January in Michigan and it's 8 degrees outside, but my two year old isn't. Needed an indoor option. Here's my question...

This x100. These little things are great. I still use my cornys for full batches, but for my gallon testers and smaller batches of cider or experimental brews, these are legit, and they carb up fast as heck.

Just came back to this story, msa8967, but mine is installed on a slope already that naturally runs down from the front to the back of the house. Last year I had good luck with it growing up the slope, and am hoping for a bigger harvest this year now that the bines are established.

This is a good perspective. Thanks! It's what I was thinking, but it allows me to do both size batches.

I'm interested in the same thing. I have the capability for two gallon batches in my kitchen at home -- is there potential drawback other than maybe using a touch more CO2 to getting the bigger one and only filling it with a gallon?

Sounds like another great giveaway from a great sponsor! In!

Samesies. Followed tightly and got exactly 1056 OG. Bottled it last night at a nice sweet but tart 1014. Woke up this morning to a gusher, so I tossed it all in the fridge stat. Hoping to stop bottle bombs. Any tips on if I should bring them back to room temp and pasteurize tonight after work...

@rainmanak44 Good tip! @_nick_ The particular wire I used is galvanized, so I'm hoping to avoid rust issues that way.

@nagmay The 2x4 on the outside is a good idea. I wasn't worried about it too much, as using 5 3" deck screws is good for almost a ton of holding force. As far as the weight, the wires are rated for 100# each, so a total of 400# for the whole setup, but I had not thought about the wind. My...

@Beek I usually plant after I'm relatively certain that we're done with late spring snow/frosts, so I just planted them this weekend.

@Wemet Yeah, our frost depth here is 42", which wasn't going to happen for me. I figure even if the frost pushes it out, next spring I'll drop the wire, dig out the hole, re-install the posts and go from there. I'm not terribly worried like I would be if I were doing a deck or something...

@mrgrimm101 Not even a little bit. As I mentioned, we have terrible soil that's full of clay. We got 2'9" down, so almost a full yard. There's really not a lot of weight up there as is, and with the clay packed around the post tightly I could climb up there to the top and jump up and down on it...