Recent content by tnlandsailor

It's going to depend on how cold your chill water is. A larger diameter means you can flow a lot more wort but if your chill water isn't very cold, then there won't be enough heat transfer to chill that larger wort flow. You can pretty easily get 1 GPM out of 3/8" OD tubing with even a modest...

Just from a quick look, it looks like your chiller isn't level. If you gravity feed, when the kettle runs dry, the low side of the coils will not drain. Even if you use a pump, as soon as the kettle is empty, your pump can draw air over the wort that is trapped in the downhill coils. If you...

Are you talking about connections to the wort circuit? I would stick with slip on tubing and a hose clamp rather than risk a permanent compression connection to a very expensive chiller.

"Fastest" is a bit muddled. I've always considered speed being how long (or short in this case) does it take after I turn off the burner do I have a carboy filled with chilled wort ready for pitching. All things being equal, an in-line chiller will always be "fastest". The speed argument doesn't...

That is really surprising that you keep getting stuff out of it after cleaning. However, any time you have a damp enclosed space, chances are that mold will grow given enough time, even if something is clean to begin with. Ever since I've had my CFC, I store it full of water with caps on both...

I have not heard of that. Can you link to something where I can read more about it?

ancientmariner52 is probably right, but the paranoia in me says that mold has tendency to spread. If your mill is in the same place as say, an empty fermentation vessel or some transfer hoses - even though you sanitize these before use - mold can be tenacious. There are posts all over this forum...

There was a guy in my homebrew club who basically brewed Belgians and Belgian variants almost exclusively. Everything had wild yeast or bacteria in it from a style standpoint and he made good beer. The problem was, when he tried to brew anything else, it tasted Belgian. After insulting him by...

The stand that came with my burner was only about 15" high or so. I just built a riser for it. I started with the fermenter sitting on the ground, measured up 6" for the height of the chiller, then built the riser so the outlet of the kettle was an inch or so above that. Then I built a simple...

Almost sounds like galling (where the metals on the two mating surfaces sort of weld together) rather than beer goo. I'm curious to see what the parts looked like when you finally got them apart.

Got in a bit late on this discussion. A gravity fed CFC works fine. Your wort outflow in 3/8" OD tubing is going to be about 3 minutes per gallon if you set it up correctly. No pumps needed. Summer brewing requires a pre-chiller, but a decently designed CFC should be able to get you within about...

I thought that the Perlick 425's were great (still have a couple on my jockey box). They had the same basic design as the Vent-Matics which I think was the reason they were discontinued - there was a design lawsuit. Eventually, the 525's came out which eliminated the shuttle part of the design...

Around 2004 - 2005, Perlick had competition in the forward sealing faucet market from Vent-Matic. Vent-Matic then had some devastating manufacturing problems (the Tsunami of late 2004) and legal issues with Perlick regarding the design. From 2005 until just last year, Perlick was the only game...

ProMash is great. I have used it religiously for over 10 years. But just like anything else, what have you done for me lately? No updates, no mobile app, no Mac compatibility (except for a fairly involved process with WINE/WINE BOTTLER), no support. ProMash is dead to me. If you are searching...

I have a couple of Sabco converted kegs that I have been using for over 10 years where they just welded the exterior. Until they went to only making kettles with tri-clamp connections, this was how they made all their kettles. This is very desirable configuration and I would recommend it. Trying...