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I used a 25' 3/8 copper IC and had pretty poor performance, I upgraded to 50' and the chilling capacity improved. The biggest improvement was when I started whirlpooling at the end with a pump. I can now chill ~6 gallons of wort to 65F in about 10 minutes. A little longer in the summer when the...

I've brewed 10 gallons of Pale Ale, a pumpkin ale, and a 5 gallon RIS that all were in the ~25# range. I wasn't able to mash as thin as I usually like but it's worked well for me. I was about an inch from the top for both the 10 gallon batches.

I mashed with the pumpkin as per Yuri's recipe, the only thing that I didn't follow was the amount of spice added, I used only 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice at flameout ( for 10 gallons). I smell the pumpkin more than taste it, I can taste the spice but probably only because I know I put in...

Are you fly sparging or batch sparging? That may help us understand if you are over sparging. Also are you using a hose connected to the mash tun to get some siphon effect in the mash tun? When I lauter and sparge from my cooler mash tun, the flow usually stops very suddenly and there is very...

If you're doing batch sparging I would leave it slightly tipped while you drain the wort, when the main flow is done I would stop. I think you'd just be wasting time trying to get every little drop out.

I brewed a batch of Yuri's Thunderstruck pumpkin ale, I hit all the mash temps and gravity was pretty much spot on. Fermented with S-04 at 65 F for 3 weeks, and it's been in the keg for 3 weeks. It seemed to turn out pretty good, but definitely not my favorite. I'd love to try a bottle of...

Looks nice, and great description/pics of the build! I've been using the same cooler (version without the wheels) with a copper manifold, and it's worked really well for me.

I'll throw in another vote for the ice-cube cooler. I holds one carboy or ale pail and by swapping out re-freezable ice packs once or twice a day it can easily maintain a temp in the low 60's. I also add ~0.5 ounce of bleach to the water to keep it from getting funky.

Never done any oak aging myself but I've been told if you microwave the oak chips in some water until it is boiling and then allow them to steep for a while it will 'age' the oak chips a bit. Dump out the water and then use the oak chips.

I think Nottingham is pretty popular, I've had good success with US-05 it has a really clean profile. S-04 is good as well.

1/2 inch is good, that's what I'm using. Any smaller and I imagine it could get clogged, I can't think of a reason why you'd want it bigger unless yours mash tun was a lot bigger. Palmers 'How to Brew' is a good resource for help on designing the manifold. http://www.howtobrew.com/

In my experience after 10 days or so you'll start to run the risk of developing vegetal flavors (grass clippings anyone?). I know I've read that some people on HBT leave the hops in the keg while serving and haven't had trouble...if it were me though 5-10 is the max.

Grain absorption is ~0.125 gallons, or 1 pint, per pound of grain. 1 L/kg if you prefer metric.

I don't have experience myself, but according to recent 'Brew Strong' podcast both Jamil and Palmer state that fermenting in containers with square corners allows for dead spaces (poor circulation) during primary fermentation and *may* lead to off-flavors. Edit: I guess I didn't read carefully...

I usually dry hop by throwing the hop pellets in the keg, leave it at room temp for about 5 days. Then I cold crash and transfer to a second keg to get it off the hops. This has worked really well for me. 1/2 to 1 ounce sounds about right.

I never had an issue either. I've either racked on top on the priming sugar solution or when I haven't I take a sanitized spoon and gently stir a few times.

I'll give another thumbs up for New Glarus (New Glarus, WI), Ale Asylum Ale Ayslum (Madison), Capital Brewery (Middleton WI), and the Great Dane (Madison). However, I don't believe Lake Louie (Arena, WI) has been mentioned, and they are definitely worth a stop.

I didn't get it that "keg shell" meant empty keg when I first read it, so I guess it depends if you can use an empty keg for a boil kettle or hlt.

Used freezers often sell for 100 or less on craigslist, the controller costs about $50 new. A new "commercial" i.e. sanke keg setup with tower from kegconnection.com is $180. So I'd agree with you that it's a little pricey.

You could go the route of buying a small chest freezer for the hops and allow you roommates to use it for food as well, if their kitchen freezer is always full they'd probably appreciate that. Then get a dorm fridge or "son-of-fermentation chiller" to ferment in. I suppose you could buy a small...