Recent content by Skeptonomicon

Just a heads up, if you ferment under pressure in a snake keg, your tilt readings are going to be off.

This may not be temp related, but just to avoid the extreme wear introduced to any pump when operating on a mixture of liquids and gas, which is what you get if you operate on boiling wort. The impellor will free spin to high speeds when you get a gas bubble then a sudden deceleration when it...

After you read Palmers book to understand the classical way to home brew, read Denny and Drew's Simple home brewing. It is much more up to date, and really captures the essence of simplified brewing. There is a revolution in home brewing that is all about simplicity. The all in one systems are...

You will like the foundry. It will do a good job with extract and all grain kits. Don’t bemoan the extract kits, I know some award winning brewers who only brew extracts. You can sometimes find good deals on them, and they make good beer. In any case I would suggest you start with kits, extract...

Buckets are harder to seal than car boys, so most likely a bad seal. This is why many peeps put up with carboys which are 10x harder to clean. I’ve even had the orange clown nose carboy tops leak enough to stop the bubbles, so now I use a hose clamp on the clown nose.

Even if the inkbird is set to 1 degree, you are likely to see some larger fluctuations in the temp. This is because of the mechanical limitations of the refrigeration system. It has a lag between turning on and the evaporator coils cooling, and another lag between the coils and the air inside...

Ill take the ball lock fittings from A, From B 3x 1.5” TC x 90° 1/2” hose barb - (7) - $5 ea 3x 1.5” TC x straight 1/2” hose barb - (9) - $5 ea 1x 1.5” TC x 3/4” FPT - (3) $5 ea 4x 1.5” TC clamps + silicone gasket - (22 4) - $3 ea

On large foundry, consistent 72% efficiency. I have brewed up to 5 gal, 12 lbs grain without problem, although I did sparge on that beer. Another thing I have moved to to simplify my brew day is manually recirculating by taking about 1.5gal wort from the drain spigot and pouring back into the...

I am very happy with my foundry. To be honest most of these systems are ultimately Chinese, but I like that I get the support if needed. I also like that there are a lot of others using the same system. The walls are not the thickest, but they are also not so thin that they get dented easily. I...

It will add a lot of moisture to your home. I have rigged up an old kitchen vent hood I bought on Craig's list for $35, and piped it to a plywood panel that fits into a window that I open. The vent hood vents to the exterior, and is all installed in a non-permanent manor. Prior to this I put a...

I have the foundry unit. I did not get the recirc option, and tried using my riptide pump. The riptide is a bit overkill and it is fussy at the low flow settings needed for the narrow mash tube. To simplify the cleanup, I eliminated the pump, and achieve recirc by simply pulling 3 qts at a time...

SSR leakage in the off state is 3-5mA.

Others pointed out that the SSR will leak enough to light the LED. It is also important to know which terminals the LED is hooked up to internally, which should be in the data sheet. You want to hook up the switch so the LED is on the element side of the switch. Otherwise it will light up...

Warning! Danger! I am very concerned with this setup. The safety depends on the type of GFCI you have on the 240V, and I could not get enough data on the model you chose. If This GFCI is designed for hot/hot/neutral, and you have a leak from the heater to the water, and you touch the water and...

Brilliant!