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Tradition I guess? I like the way I'm doing it now. I use a RIMS system built around a rectangular cooler + manifold, with batch sparging. Everything else has changed, but that same cooler has been with me for about 10 years! It's easy to use and clean, and I have yet to find the limit on how...

I'm drinking the first beer from my first all-electric batch now! Well, I guess some of my early batches (about 10 years ago) were boiled on an electric stove, so that might not technically be true... Anyway, the beer is a 10 gallon batch of a nut brown recipe from in Beer Captured -- the...

I was wrong!! That isn't the kind of connection I was picturing when I was talking about solid vs. stranded wire. That one probably would be better with stranded. Still, the problem looks to be the same.. As a rule, it is important for connections to be tight (with lots of metal-metal...

My first thought is the wire wasn't connected well enough. With a decent amount of current flowing, you want to make sure every connection is cranked down tight, and has a lot of metal-to-metal contact. Also, the wire-around-the-screw connections really need to be done with solid wire...

The kettle and PC boards both came in today. The best course of action would probably be to mock everything up and see what else I'll need to finish my project -- so of course I started a batch the minute the boxes were opened! The brewday actually went reasonably well, but was a little...

Yeah, I use a bucket to hold the first runnings, but just while collecting the wort. As soon as that's done, it goes in the kettle. As for driving the element, I'm using the third method that Bobby_M mentioned -- regulating the temperature of wort coming out of the RIMS tube. The (very basic)...

This, combined with the Brewers Hardware triclover fittings. I run the ground wire to the inside of the junction box, but also ground the RIMS tube / kettle / chassis separately.

I've tried using nothing but the RIMS tube (except for the boil), and it worked out alright -- it was just not as fast. The HLT isn't necessary at all in a RIMS system though, as the boil kettle can take its place.

I'm right at the 3.5 hour mark now, but it used to take more like 8 or 9 hours. At one time, that was fine (I was in college and had a lot of time on my hands), but now, not so much! Almost every upgrade I've done in the last couple years has been aimed at cutting the brew day down, as much as...

That might be the coolest kegerator I've ever seen!

Heh.. sorry about that. I like electronics almost as much as making beer. But the idea is that it's kind of an all-in-one board for the RIMS system.. just another way to do the control panel.. that hopefully won't be too much work to program.

Progress is always good! The control board is designed now, so all I have to do is order it and hope it works right! I think I'm going to go with Gold Phoenix for board fabrication this time. Yeah, that means it will be Made in China, but this way I get 15 boards (instead of 1 or 2) for my...

I haven't been through every post in the thread, but my experience with (ancient) wire wrapped stuff is that its reliability is decent enough. Back in the day, I hear there were even machines that would wire wrap a whole board, CNC style. Debugging is kind of a pain though. As for PICs, I...

I used to do HERMS.. I personally like RIMS better because it takes up less space (it's a 2 vessel system instead of 3), and I have instant control over the temperature of the wort.

Sorry the pics are kind of weak.. I'll take better ones once I get this thing built! This project has three new goals -- to stop using propane, to have no metal fittings anywhere other than 304 stainless and to make it easier to do 10 gallon batches, as my old kettle was barely big enough for...

I would personally stick to a full boil, but maybe wait until the water is pretty hot (maybe 170F or so) before adding the extract. If you're steeping grains in the batch, then you can just add the extract right after. That would get you pretty close to what you get with an all-grain batch, as...

Slightly off-topic: In college, I once fermented a batch of beer in a 10-gallon fish tank! Alcohol might have played a part in that decision, but in the end... the beer turned out fine. I've been using the same two glass carboys for the last 10 years.. plus a more recent better bottle. I made a...

So guys... I went downstairs expecting to pour a nice refreshing pint of delicious homebrew tonight, but only got a little bit of beer followed by lots of foam and CO2!!! Does that mean my batch is ruined? :drunk:

Is it still sweet, like the priming sugar never got eaten? Tripels are pretty heavy beers... it is possible that your yeast ran out of gas and couldn't ferment any more. If this is the case, the first thing I would try is moving a few bottles to somewhere hot -- like 80 degrees or so. Maybe...

+1 on the plate chiller They work well if you recirculate the boiling wort to sanitize them, then turn on the chill water just a little bit and let it recirculate more. At this point the temp in the kettle drops like a rock, and when it hits 120, the wort is coming out of the hose at pitching...