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Maybe I'm paranoid, but I spray the bottle opener and bottle cap area with ethanol, open the bottle and immediately flame the mouth, decant the beer, flame again, then cover with sterilized foil until I'm ready to pitch it. When you're working with small amounts of yeast, infection is more of a...

It's best to put it on the coldest setting, actually. This ensures that it does not interfere with the Ranco's operation.

BierMuncher's OktoberFAST Ale

I brewed my recipe a week ago, and now that the yeast has stopped throwing off SO2 the malty smells are really good. If you're looking to have something done for this fall, you could use a kolsch or alt yeast, or the San Francisco/California Lager yeast like I am. The decoction mash isn't...

At 170F you shouldn't have a problem with the handle melting. If you're really worried, wrap the handle in aluminum foil.

Of the solutions suggested, performance-wise the best is the triac dimmer ChowderMonkey linked, but in this application (very long thermal time constants), you can easily afford to PWM with a sub-Hz switching rate and notice no difference. In the end, I'd do whatever is easiest and cheapest.

If you want it super neat, I'd put it on perfboard and wire it to screw terminals, then put the whole thing in a small plastic project enclosure (available from Digi-Key or Radio Shack).

bblack7489, I'm using the TO-92 packaged device entirely potted in non-toxic epoxy. To be extra careful, PTFE insulation on the wire is food safe and will withstand much higher temperatures than I'm using here. I've also used standard PVC insulated wire for temperature sensors in...

I batch sparge and mashout. I minimize the amount of water I need to add for mashout by calculating the amount of boiling water needed to get the tun to 168F. I built a temperature controlled HLT that holds my sparge water, so I can just boil in a small pot on the stove and dump that into my...

Another option if you have a lot of "unfermentable" sugars is to step up some Brett (e.g., WLP650) to a couple liters and pitch it. It'll be slow, but it'll probably get the job done. Brett will eat most anything eventually.

http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?vendor=0&keywords=pb106-nd If you're controlling it with 12V, put a 50 Ohm, 1W resistor in series with the coil. EDIT: or even better, this one is a 12V coil.

According to the datasheet, the DS18S20's LSB corresponds to 0.5degC steps, so I wouldn't fret that you're adding much additional error with a hysteresis band of about that size. (At least, I assume that's the sensor you're using.) I generally use the LM335 temperature sensor and set my...

Doing hysteretic control like you've proposed will cause the temperature to oscillate, but it absolutely shouldn't be a problem. In fact, I suspect that many people using a generic PID are getting larger oscillations than this because they haven't got the time constants set up correctly...

I made a controller for my chest freezer using a microcontroller, an LM335, and a relay. I've been thinking that I will make a smaller / lower cost temp controlled water bath using a Peltier cooler in an 18 gallon tub. Rough back-of-the-envelope calculations* imply I can easily keep it down...

This is another "fast" Oktoberfest-style beer. Instead of using an ale yeast, however, I'm experimenting with using the Anchor lager strain at moderately low ale temps (62F), which should give a faster finish than a true lager while being more lager-like than an Alt or European Ale strain. My...

The big downside I see to this---unless I'm misunderstanding this, which happens a lot :)---is that by virtue of the fact that you're mixing heated and unheated wort, you are guaranteeing that the wort in your exchanger is hotter than your target temp when you are slewing the temp around. For...

Yup. Note that this is only true if the current-carrying wires are matched in resistance (this should be reasonably close to true). You put a constant current through the RTD, and measure the voltage drop across one of the current-carrying wires. Subtract this voltage from the voltage between...

The simplest (circuit-wise) device that will do what you want is called a Variac. New, especially for 240V/20A, they will be very expensive. You may be able to find a surplus/used one somewhere; I used to find them laying around dumpsters near the EE buildings at my university, and have...

VWR lab shop has 8 dram (30 mL) vials with phenolic caps, 144 for $62. More than you need, but a decent price if you can find some people to go in on it with you.

My most recently purchased bottle of Five Star Defoamer 105 says keep in refrigerator, and good for 6 months from purchase. I believe both are some kind of siloxane.