Recent content by SoCalHomeBrew

I've brewed about 25-30 different beers through this now. Even with a 10 gallon batch, outside, in the cold, in the wind, the external herms does a great job of maintaining mash temp. I ran out of propane at the end of my boil on one batch. I was able to start up the herms and maintain about...

I just completed my touchscreen RaspberryPi kiosk with an 1500 watt 120v electric heater, 2 gallon pot (housing the external herms coil), a single re-circulation pump to drive it all and a Duda 40 plate chiller. The hardware: - RaspberryPi 3 Model B with 2amp power supply - 800x600...

Below is the brew chart from last night showing the initial propane start up to 152 degrees again, rise to 156... then when the 16lbs of room temperature grain is added the temp drops back to 152, and the system rises back to 156 for the duration. A few interesting notes. When stirring the pot I...

I just completed my touchscreen RaspberryPi kiosk with an 1500 watt 120v electric heater, 2 gallon pot (housing the external herms coil), a single re-circulation pump to drive it all and a Duda 40 plate chiller. The hardware: - RaspberryPi 3 Model B with 2amp power supply - 800x600 HDMI/USB...

A touchscreen RaspberryPi kiosk with an 1500 watt 120v electric heater, 2 gallon pot housing an external herms coil, and a single recirculation pump to drive it all.

A touchscreen RaspberryPi kiosk with an 1500 watt 120v electric heater, 2 gallon pot housing an external herms coil, and a single recirculation pump to drive it all.

A touchscreen RaspberryPi kiosk with an 1500 watt 120v electric heater, 2 gallon pot housing an external herms coil, and a single recirculation pump to drive it all.

A touchscreen RaspberryPi kiosk with an 1500 watt 120v electric heater, 2 gallon pot housing an external herms coil, and a single recirculation pump to drive it all.

A touchscreen RaspberryPi kiosk with an 1500 watt 120v electric heater, 2 gallon pot housing an external herms coil, and a single recirculation pump to drive it all.

A touchscreen RaspberryPi kiosk with an 1500 watt 120v electric heater, 2 gallon pot housing an external herms coil, and a single recirculation pump to drive it all.

The way mine is set up priming is never an issue. Once I open the valve it's already primed even before I plug it in.

My 2 cents: I bought the original ops pump and for the most part it works great. However, on high gravity batches, the thickness of the sugars seem to gum up the mag drive about 45 minutes into the mash, causing it to stop working, often times requiring dis-assembly to get cleaned and started...

I'm extremely interested in your results as well as applaud your low cost solution to testing the theory.