Recent content by ThreeRatBastards

I'm not totally sure what you mean by 'fly sparge during the HERMS run'. You want to recirculate the wort during the mashing process and fly sparge after your mash conversion is complete. A simplified version of the process I use with my HERMS is as follows: 1) Dough in and stir 2) After...

Founder's released a beer called Mango Magnifico that was exactly this. I liked the beer a lot. http://foundersbrewing.com/backstage-series/mango-magnifico-con-calor-2013/ My best experience with fruit has been to puree fresh fruit and pasteurize it, put the puree in a secondary, rack on top...

I used an old immersion chiller as a HERMS coil for a couple of years. I didn't put it through the kettle walls at all and it worked great! Here is how it looked in my setup: The immersion chiller/HERMS coil is peeking out over the top of the vessel on the right. You can see how the input...

Here's what I've learned with my HERMS system (no direct fire MT) 1) Heat up strike water in Boil Kettle and at the same time heat up the water in my HLT to about 5 - 10 degrees above my desired mash temp 2) Pump strike water from BK into MT. By heating up your strike water in the BK and not...

Has anyone done a Keggle yet that cares to share some pictures?

My simple wooden stands for my SQ14 burners and bottom drain mash tun:

With a stir plate you need a stir bar (a pill shaped magnet you place inside the starter). The rare earth magnet is what grabs this stir bar and spins it which ultimately spins the wort and keeps the yeast inside it active.

"First Runnings" comes from batch sparging not fly sparging. In batch sparging you vorlauf, collect first runnings, fill your mash tun with sparge water, stir, let it set for 10 min or so, vorlauf again, and collect second runnings. Repeat until you have desired pre-boil volume (3rd runnings...

I just turned a 3rd keg into a bottom drain mash tun this past weekend. I went with the Sanke Keg Bottom drain kit from brewhardware.com (http://brewhardware.com/valves-69/137-tcsanke). Read on that link the advantages of bottom draining. I also got a false bottom there...

Sorry, but the princess is in another keezer. Awesome design!

I would focus on all grain before kegging. Build a mash tun, wort chiller and buy the burner and kettle like you mentioned.

That's exactly right. I have a set up similar to what you described, one pump, 2 keggles (BK and HLT), and a cooler mash tun. The only "tinkering" I had to do to get this setup to work for me was to build a stand for the mash tun that could gravity feed into the BK while fly sparging. The...

I just finished putting together my HERMS system and it has gone through two brewing sessions thus far. Here's what I have learned so far, but I do still feel there is a lot more fine tuning to be had for my process. - I don't know of any equation. I've just been adjusting the flame under my...

I soak mine overnight in a bath of hot water + oxyclean. It works everytime!

I'm at about 1.25 gal/hr in mine.