Recent content by texashomer

The Equipment Profile, while a bit detailed, is starting to make some sense. Question - If I find a 5 gal recipe and apply my equipment profile will BS adjust the gris bill and additional ingredients, or is that when you "Scale" the recipe? Also, If I want to "Target" 6 gal into the fermenter do...

bm612, How's progress? I just mentioned to a friend that I wanted his help to add some automation pieces to my rig. Could I trouble you to post some pictures at current stage? I'd love to see the evolution.

OneMan, you are actually moving ahead at a good pace here. I'm just starting to research this level of automation and am very interested. Please continue to share. I have to fill my keggle with about 9 gallons to submerge my Herms coil as well. I wind up using the extra water to thoroughly...

What causes blow off tube liquid to be sucked back into the fermenter? I've seen a couple of posts that mention something about a temperature change causing this and I had it happen this past winter. Does anyone know the mechanics behind this?

Plus 1 to Stealcruiser's comment about galvanized metal. The guys that did mine sanded down all the surfaces on my rig to strip off the very top layer of galvanization coating. At 2 years later it's still holding up well.

I would go with the powder coating without hesitating. At less than 100 bucks it's a no brainer. I don' t know how you're going to mount your burners but I know I had to add a riser to provide additional air flow. Even though I drilled mounting holes to adjust the height. My initial burn test...

This is a great build and well thought out. I love the fact you pretty much covered all your cleaning scenarios. I built a washing system but I put the pump in a separate box with a heating element. I found out quickly that the water flow volume I wanted to really blast off debris was moving the...

I made my rig a bit taller, it's 31 inches on the low side. I put 5" casters on it because I wanted smooth rolling. The inlet to the pumps is +/- 10" off the ground which has proven to give me enough clearance for a no kink connection. I know you're targeting a much lower build but even at 31"...

sloanfamilydsm - The water and grains would fall out? hu? The lids I use for the HTL and BK are simply the cut-out from cutting off the top of the keg.

I echo "Hophop's" comment. I generally carb a new keg at +/- 20 PSI for 4 or 5 days then drop to 8 to 10 PSI for duration of keg. (This doesn't take into consideration the amount of Co2 volume per style. The stuff you'd find in the charts.)

I set up my rig generally as you've described. I have the HLT up high and the MLT and BK on the same level. I fly sparge with a Chugger pump through a HERMS coil within the HLT. Once I get a flow going out of the MLT I set the ball valve at a flow rate that takes 30 minutes or more to gather my...

Here are some images of the rig I built. My main goal was to have on board storage and as much as possible in one place. After many many hours of research on this forum, and others, this is the final result. What you don't see in the images below are the two 6 foot folding tables that clip...

At Mash out I Vorlauf for 10 minutes through my HLT embedded Herms coil. The HLT water continues to heat since I drew off my strike water and is usually at 180+ at this point. I try to lauter for 30 minutes or more and have not experienced any off or tannin flavors yet.

I almost went down the rotating arm build but decided on simplicity. I figured pointing the holes up would prevent channels from formaing. The only drawback in this design so far is if I open the pump valve too high. The wort splashes off the inside of the cooler lid and leaks down the outside.

I mounted mine with the output up and don't have priming issues.