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As much as I tried to design the plumbing on my new brew cart to fully drain, there are the inevitable lines that don't. After wet testing, I can see that after a brew/CIP/rinse cycle, some water will be trapped in a couple of lines. How hard do I need to try and get this water out? I plan on...

Which is better? I'm putting my element together. I was originally planning to drill a hole next to the hot lugs, and solder the ground wire into it. I would then pot the whole thin into a pvc coupler with JBWeld. However, this doesn't seem nearly as easy as potting just the hot wires...

My brew cart has a NEMA 14-30 (L-shaped neutral blade) plug. I will eventually have a corresponding outlet in my basement brewing area, but in the meantime, I would like to plug it into my range outlet in the kitchen. The problem with this, is that the range outlet is a NEMA 14-50 (straight...

I've tried searching for this, but haven't found anything that definitively (for me, at least) answers the question. I'm planning on using a 12" x 12" x 6" plastic junction box. I've got 2 40A SSR's and heatsinks from Auber, which will send power to each leg of a 4500W ULWD element. This...

I guess I'm close enough to building this thing, that I can share. It's an amalgamation of several ideas I've gleaned from people, and combined into a do-it-all brewing rig. I'll be building it on a cart for portability. It will consist of a motorized grain mill, a single-vessel BIABasket...

It's a 4-wire 220V input. Line 1, line 2, neutral, and ground. The Line 1 buss has one leg of the heating element, and that's it. The Line 2 buss has the other leg of the heater element, and the 110V hot-side wires (pump, vent fan, etc.). The neutral buss has all the 110V neutrals...

To those with counter-flow chillers... Does anyone know roughly how much water it takes to cool a 5 gallon batch? I have a 20-foot copper-tube-in-rubber-hose CFC, and I would like to save the cooling water for cleanup after a brew session. Normal city water pressure supplies the cooling-water...

I'm in the "niggling details" portion of my portable brew cart planning, and I thought it would be awesome to have massive mold and mildew problems in my basement. But alas, resale value, my health, and SWMBO made me decide against my desire for breathing problems and a green basement ceiling...

Just an idea... I know a fridge or freezer is more efficient when it's full (more thermal mass). I've heard of people filling a partially full freezer with Styrofoam to make it more efficient. This gave me an idea. I'm building a 4-corny keezer, and was pondering making a foam insert for...

I've had Imperial Bastard Stout in the fermenter for 3 weeks. OG was 1.095. It was in my basement, which was a little too cold (62-ish), until 3 days ago. The gravity was 1.040. I brought it upstairs to a warmer room and gave it a gentle shake, which got me some airlock activity for a day or...

I shamelessly stole this awesome schematic from a member on here (P-J, I believe? Can't quite remember), and used it as a base for planning my control schematics. Credit where it's due... It helped me wrap my head around what it is I need my system to do, and made my planning incredibly...

Looking through several member's schematics and plans, it seems a lot of people use 15A breakers for a March/Chugger/LG pump. I plan on using a LG pump. According to the specs, it's a 1/25HP pump. This equals about 30W which at 115V, equals a current draw of about 0.3A. The specs also call out...

There's a local craft brew (that coincidentally just went on sale in bottles) that I'm head over heels for. While I love to help support local brews, and will continue to buy it (often), I would also love to be able to make this beer. It's a dark brown/slightly reddish beer, malty with a...

Brewed Imperial Bastard Stout this past Sunday. After a 2 day lag, fermentation took off like a rocket. I had a blow off tube, and it still blew the bucket lid off. It happened while I was at work, and SWMBO had the mess cleaned by the time I got home, so no carnage pics. I got home to...

I just brewed a batch with my new kettle. The brewing went great, but I left the pot to soak overnight in some oxyclean, and SWMBO just woke me up to tell me there's water all over the floor. To my dismay, the sight gauge on my kettle is all cracked up, which allowed a slow leak over the course...

I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm being paranoid here, but I'll post this to the HBT gods for a more experienced opinion: I recently installed weldless fittings in my new boil kettle. After drilling the holes, I wiped the area down with a dry rag, then installed the fittings. My...

I brought my new brew kettle (62-qt Bayou Classic w/ fryer basket) to a buddy to weld a stainless coupler into for a ball valve and pickup tube. The outside is welded fine. He had a little difficulty due to the difference in material thickness between the pot and the coupling, but it came...

Sorry if this idea has been suggested already... A cursory search didn't turn up anything, so... I remember years ago, my father would water and fertilize his garden with a hose siphon like this: It connects in line with the hose, and the small black line was placed in a bucket of diluted...

I plan on making a 240V keggle, using a 5500 watt element, an Auber PID w/RTD temp sensor, and THIS inline GFI cable. My question is: How do I wire it up? Specifically, the neutral wire. I know the 2 hots connect to the element, and the ground gets bolted to the keggle itself. I have...

Hello all! Figured I'd send greetings while I was relaxing, not worrying, having (and enjoying) my very first homebrew! I'm glad I found this site... More good info here than I could ever take in. I've only done a few extracts so far... The Brewer's Best English Brown Ale I'm currently...