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My copper chiller always accumulated this at one point in particular, for no apparent reason - it always went away and came back when exposed to starsan, wort etc... Eventually, I just took some scotchbrite to it and rubbed it back to completely bare copper and it hasn't been back since.

I work a lot with o-ring in work and they typically swell, sometimes quite a lot, when they are exposed to something they don't like! I normally see this in work when a nitrile aka rubber oring is exposed to engine oil or hydraulic oil. In your case, the o-ring they used is probably a standard...

Hello all! I had a bit of a light bulb moment a while back while using my stainless steel braided hose as a mash tun filter. I had a pretty bad stuck sparge and it occured to me that the holes in the braid are just too small - after all it is the grain bed that is supposed to do the actuallly...

I would assume, given that we have all taken the time to register to a forum and to partake in a discussion of the finer points of brewing, that we are all interested in brewing the best possible beer. Not rehydrating your yeast is adequate, but not the best.

"I did x and got y" is the equivalent of "my grandfather smoked everyday of his life and lived to 100"** But no one will argue that smoking is good for your health. The same goes for not rehydrating your yeast. You may have pitched it dry into the wort and your palate may not have decerned...

I throttle back my elements after reaching hot break as my kitchen extraction system can't keep up with 100% boil and quickly becomes a beer-flavoured sauna ...

Sounds like you need a dip tube on the inside of the spigot! The syphon effect normally draws up the last of the beer nicely

See below: The switch could go on either the positive or negative wire, FYI.

What particular property of your bottling bucket caused splashing that is not encounter when using a carboy? It sounds as though you are using the bottling "vessel" concept, just with a syphon rather than a spigot.

You can bulk prime with sugar in a bottling bucket. If you tried to mix in sugar in the primary, you are going to whip up all the trub and yeast that has settled out. I did a few sessions without a bottling bucket and will never go back!

I live near the bushmills distillery and you can get one of their barrels for £45 (~$75). Obviously, being on the other side of the ocean, I don't know how relevant this is, but it is much less than half what they are asking.

This, all the way! Feel the temperature of the copper pipe at the outlet of the chiller before stirring and while stirring - big, big difference.

Here in Northern Ireland, docking was actually made illegal last year. Our springer spaniel has a docked tail - undocked they are just far too difficult to keep, they get matted and dirty easily and, especially in the case of a gun dog like ours, gets caught on bush and thorns constantly...

I brew in a small flat in the UK too! I quite regularly ferment ales at this temp range, sometimes starting off lower than 16*C to begin with - but that might be heading towards pushing it! The brew belt is a good idea after the first few days of fermentation, once the bulk of it is over, and...

Thermal Conductivity: Copper - 400 Aluminium - 205 Stainless Steel - 16 PVC - 0.19 So, um, copper is 2000 times better at conducting heat than PVC.

Large errors are possible, even with the most expensive equipment - the gear I use in work totals about £10,000 and can still require calibrations of +/- 2 degC regularly. The only real solution, without paying for an expensive multi-point calibration, is to just use the device and "calibrate...

There is some literature to suggest that you should rehydrate not much more than 30 minutes before pitching. This is because certain energy reserves (glycogen) within the dried yeast are consumed as the yeast rehydrates in water - which is obviously devoid of any source of energy for the yeast...

I would imagine they would explode - mason jars probably aren't designed to contain much pressure. Serve them in mason jars by all means - seems to be quite a popular thing in bars round here at the minute.

There would be nothing to stop the blow-off entering the the airlock and making a mess, this is the problem with them that necessitates the use of the blow-off tube during active fermentation.

Hired one of these for a weekend to photo a christening for a friend - honestly didn't want to give it back ! Then I remembered they had a deposit from my credit card for the full value and I wanted to eat something other than baked beans for dinner for the next year