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It's probably "Beer stone" - deposits of calcium oxalate. It will pretty much always happen, and it needs removing to properly sanitize the lines. You can remove it with beer line cleaner (e.g. Five Star Liquid Line Cleaner) or Five Star Beer Stone remover. I pump LLC through my lines for 20...

Thanks AJ, that's more detail than I can process immediately! But, I'll certainly accept that yeast would put CO2 into the beer in a different initial mix of CO2(aq), H2CO3 and H+ + HCO3- over force carbing. The mechanism for getting CO2+H2CO3* out of yeast cells and into the beer is obviously...

Googling, hydration of CO2 appears to be formation of carbonic acid from dissolved CO2 in the CO2 + H2O:H+ + HCO3-:H2CO3 equilibrium that I referred to. It seems a bit of an odd phrasing to this physicist and was only used in passing on the wikipedia page or the chemistry dept lecture notes on...

Sure, the carbing up rates are different. But the end result at equilibrium is the same. I don't know what Martin means by "hydrating" CO2. That's not something that CO2 does. It can reach an equilibrium with carbonic acid, but in water at an atmosphere or two, that's more than 1000:1 CO2...

Inline carbonation at serving can be completely different to force carbing in a keg, because the CO2 bubbles injected inline don't ever have to dissolve and reform when the pressure is released. But force carbing a keg by pressurizing the headspace requires CO2 molecules to enter solution, so...

There's definitely no difference in bubble size intrinsically between naturally and force carbed CO2. It's CO2. It has three atoms, and it can't tell where it came from. Some other bits of the process might alter the beer's viscosity/surface tension, which is what sets bubble size for a given...

That can only be measurement error and/or inadequate mixing. You can't have grain with zero thermal mass.

The other option would be to have a packet of Danstar Munich Classic (not Danstar Munich) on standby. I've made a good hefe with that, and it'll keep in the freezer until the next batch if you don't need it.

I guess the extreme case I was vaguely worried about would be wet active bacteria in the opened foam cells, vs. dry dormant bacteria on the grain. Probably you're right, and the load on the grain would outweigh that anyway. And if you aren't cleaning the foam, you probably aren't doing LoDO...

Another way is to brew with say 100ppm SO4 and 50ppm Cl and the relevant calcium levels, then get a dropper and make up some CaSO4 and CaCl solutions to add to samples drop by drop to see how it changes.

That sounds pretty safe as an assumption. Maybe. I think the rate of swelling might be a reasonable test, but you need to take account of temperature there as well. If it swells quickly, then, yeah, the yeast is happily active. But you'd need to be ready to pitch it right then, I think, to...

It depends on how it was stored and transported. Some yeast calculators significantly underestimate viability for yeast that's had a good cold-chain storage, IMO. If you don't know, do a starter after smacking, and see how it goes. A fairly small starter should restrict the growth...

In addition to going closed cell, it's probably important to work out a way of smoothing the cut edges, or you might end up with some extremely yucky cut cells on the edges that are hard to clean out. I guess in an extreme case, they might harbor bacteria that sours the wort during the mash.

Well, Fuller's is a southern brewery, and we don't do head on beer in the south. No sparklers on handpumps, and glasses full to the brim. So I doubt head retention is part of their spec. And no, head retention and lacing is not a sign of a well-crafted bitter. There shouldn't be a head on...

It'd probably be easier to just buy the inline carbonator thing that Blichmann (and others) sell now. The next line is especially for doug293cz: Overcomplicating things and reinventing the wheel, don't do that. Unless you really want to.

This is the silicone o-ring Brewhardware sells for heating elements in their TC fittings https://www.brewhardware.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=GasketElement 1.25" inside diameter is the important dimension if you want to find one locally.

I've had a commercial El Dorado only NEIPA, and it definitely stood up on its own. I cannot for the life of me remember the brewery though. ETA: A cunning Google image search tells me it was Lone Pine (El Dorado) Onesie.

Munich Classic worked very well for me at 62F.

N2/CO2 mixture is beer gas, isn't it? So you've got a beer gas tank and a CO2 tank. Perfect. However, if the label says that they must be refilled somewhere, it's possible that they were rented cylinders, and not the property of the person who sold them to you. Compare with the discussions...

Cryo hop extract is designed for exactly this problem, although the varieties are limited.