Recent content by tgioiosa

Brew Your Own magazine

I'd agree with others posting that out of the BMCP beers, PBR has the best taste. Whenever I'm out of homebrew, I turn to PBR to tide me over till the next batch. Sure, my homebrews are way, way better in almost all cases, but every now and then we all run out unexpectedly. If I had to choose...

I use Aluminum pots also. I noticed corrosion occurring when stainless steel couplings are used on the inside of the pot to mount the ball valve. I use weldless fittings that have a brass ball valve on the outside and a stainless nipple and stainless coupling on the inside. There is galvanic...

Yea, Bjornbrewer, that's pretty much what I meant. Also, if you do insulate the vessel, it would be of more benefit.

When using gas or propane, the burner is under the vessel, so the heat from the burner has to pass through the stainless wall to heat the liquid inside. A good portion of energy from the burner is lost to the surrounding air(since the transfer from the flames to the metal bottom of the vessel...

I vote for electric. It's more expensive in the inital costs and setup, but once you're going the per-session cost is less with electric. You don't have to deal with combustion gas venting. Although you do have to be careful with wiring, grounding, and definitely use GFCI protection. It's more...

I have a single tier system and I do a sort of hybrid fly-sparge with one pump. I have my control system alternate between adding spargewater and draining the MLT. It drains around 0.5 gals then adds sparge water, then drains again, then adds sparge water again, etc. The single pump alternates...

Same here. I've had mine for about two years now and it works great. I typical get 75% to 78% efficiency. It pays for itself in what you save buying sacks of grain and crushing it yourself.

Yep, I have brass fittings on my Therminator also, and haven't seen any problems. The galvanic potential between Brass and Stainless steel is pretty low, and should be OK. -Tony

I use one mounted with the top of the Therminator about 1" below my Boil Kettle. With gravity feed it will empty 10 gallons into the fermenting bucket in about 15 minutes. The connections are 1/2" Ball Valve from the Kettle through 1/2" I.D. tubing to the Therminator. With the cold water...