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^^ my thinking as well. I initially drew up diagrams of this fancy thing I was going to build but nothing I could dream up could match the compactness, simplicity, and portability of this soft cooler. If the goal is really to have a quick and convenient way of serving on-the-go homebrew a few...

That's a very cool setup you have there. What purpose is served by holding the 12psi pressure? Is that to keep a lid seal on the serving keg? Does it prevent the krausen from rising too high in the fermentor?

I have one of these as well. It works much better than you'd think it would by looking at it. As you say, start with a keg that is already reasonably cold, fill with ice, and keep out of the sun. Every time I've used this thing for a party, there has still been ice in it the next day when I'm...

Many thanks to IslandLizard for this thread - it has been a huge help for improving my process! I saw this thread several months ago and decided to give this process a try. The first 3 attempts worked - in the sense that I was able to get the beer into the kegs without ever removing the...

Open top bucket for me, works fine. A bucket of Star San can continue to do its job effectively for a long time. Early on I would make up a batch and roll with it for months and months. I never had any infections but admittedly, I overdid it a bit. It would get to the point where the Star...

Plastic bottles are underrated, IMO. A box of 24 of them is light as a feather, reusable caps, built-in carbonation check, they don't shatter when you inevitably drop one while bottling, etc. I know they supposedly allow more oxygen to get in but I always used a mix of plastic and glass and...

^^ Anything more than this is a waste of time, energy, and water, IMO. I keg nowadays, but using the above mentioned simple steps I bottled dozens of batches with not a single problem that could plausibly be attributed to the bottling process. Of course, it really helps to make sure to rinse...

I think the best answer is, just brew wherever the process is the most painless. I have always brewed in the garage, but for a while I was strongly considering moving down into the basement because that is where I was storing all of the gear. With everything that you need to do on a brew day...

I don't use gelatin or any kind of cold-side fining, so in my experience, the only "sure" way of getting crystal clear beer is to keep it in the fridge/keeze/whatever, undisturbed, for as long as it takes.

Sorry, haven't been on here in a while. My setup has been running for about 4-5 months solid and I'm overall very happy with it. I did make a few tweaks and learn a few things since my last post but I haven't adjusted anything in a while. Actually, the whole system is currently down because I...

How many beer lines do you have? You say the chiller is cycling once per hour, but honestly, I'm a bit surprised it's not more frequently than that with a submersible pump constantly running inside such a small fluid reservoir. That pump is not only rejecting heat into the reservoir, but it's...

Yeah, I figure I have about 1/3 of a pint sitting in the lines. I do get a bit of a burp of foam when pulling the first pint but I’m just not seeing it as an issue. The first pint overall pours OK and there is no wasted beer. Does your penguin pump run non-stop or do you have it on some...

Hope you get around to building something! Long draw systems like this are very fiddly, but it really is nice to not have to work around the dimensions of a bulky freezer or the like. You have to be careful planning your budget, too. This project nickeled-and-dimed me to within an inch of my...

When I was researching this project, what I found frustrating was the constant dead ends. There were lots of threads and reddits or whatever around the internet where people would say they're attempting some sort of glycol-cooled trunk line system, and they'd make a few preliminary posts to...

What kind of bottles are you using? Back when I used to bottle, I had a carbonation problem only once. I needed more bottles at the time so I bought some 500ml amber-colored plastic bottles with screw-on caps, and all beer in the batch carbonated fine except for the beer in these plastic...

So here's what it looks like in a dark room with the LED lighting. It's hard to do it justice, but it looks pretty cool. And here is the setup in the basement: As is plainly obvious here, aesthetics were not a concern in the basement; I just wanted things to be functional. On the left...

I have about 4 gallons of propylene glycol in a keg, which I chill in a small chest freezer. It gets pushed through the trunk line using an external pump. Highly inefficient I guess, but pretty low cost. I just let that glycol freezer go full blast, with no temperature control. I monitored...

I started kegging in early 2018. Initially, I had a beat-up old fridge that I converted to a 4-tap kegerator, which served me well for about 18 months. But it was kind of unsightly and was therefore relegated to a dark corner of our unfinished basement. I really wanted a way of serving the...

I tried brewing many, many IPAs and hoppy pale ales and was always disappointed with the results, so I just stopped brewing them altogether. I do full RO with Bru N Water, measure mash pH, fermentation temperature control, get freshest ingredients possible, etc. The only big thing I could see...

I'm no barleywine expert, but looking at your recipe, I think I would have moved all of the hops to 60 minutes. This style of beer is usually cellared for a while to allow it to develop into its prime form, which makes late hop additions kind of antithetical to the process. The fact that you...