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Haha... I'm flattered, but not I'm worthy of being mentioned in the same paragraph as Yuri. :)

I hope so Brewpastor. I'm changing a few things with my next batch... Going to try mixing up some "profiled" water w/ RO water + salts (have only used local tap so far and found bicarbonates to be off the charts) and also controlling my fermentation temps. My fingers are crossed hoping that...

Hi Grim, I've built some other things like this BUFFET for the wife, but I think everything in those pics is store bought. :) Yeah, I debated long and hard with myself on whether to have active of passive cooling. I needed for it to be quiet, so about the closest I actually came to...

I wrote my first pass of temperature controlling software this weekend and have been testing it out the past couple of days. Here's what the user interface looks like... Nothing very fancy at the moment, but it's serving it's purpose. I'll probably re-write the control portion of this as a...

Here's a little more data if anyone's curious. I've still just had it running in an always-on state so it is chewing through the ice chamber's cooling capacity quicker than it "should" once I get the controlling software written (tomorrow I hope). It had leveled out on Friday, and I had a...

Good thread! I looked for consolidated info like this thread when I was looking for ideas to build mine. BrewFlex Info on how to build in 8000 easy steps HERE

Well, I've got things together enough to give it a little test run. I've spent the past 3 nights installing Cacti (www.cacti.net) for charting. Great application, but 1000 ways to do it wrong. :) Anyway, it's a little late in the game for a proof of concept, but I scrambled to get it...

Don't forget a thermocouple!! That was another item I grabbed on eBay. Believe mine was a type K. I have a tip on QD's.... I searched lonnnng and hard for them. Found one little place tucked away at the back of the Internet that was selling them for about half of the best pricing I could...

I used one of THESE on my setup to control a hot water heater element and, so far, it has worked fine. They're pretty reasonably priced on eBay. This particular model does have a relay built in, but it is not rated to handle the load of a hot water heater element, so I did have to use a...

Know what you mean about time... Between this and BrewFlex and life and work (and I had to work a buffet project in for the wife to keep the harmony) it doesn't seem like I've had an ounce of free time this year. I've only been able to brew about 5 times... Tragic! It's all been fun, but...

I've managed to make a little progress... You can see what was in my head now. To make it this far, I back-burnered tidying things up with trim, so excuse the sloppy looking places please... I'll get back to them! For securing everything, I didn't want to pierce the insulation if I...

I'll take tons of pics as I progress with the cooling part of it. Pretty sure I have found a way to plot all of my temp sensors onto graphs too, so one way or another I'll get some performance data up here for the world to chew on. I've got a full house from Thanksgiving visitors this...

Very nice setup!!

I actually have a tip on the carboy/tile/other hard surface combination. I did fill the carboys directly on the garage floor, then carry them to the "beer room" for fermentation, where I tried as gently as possible to place them on the floor. There have been a couple of times where gentle...

Thanks for the comments everyone! Ed, once I get it to the point that I can actually test, I plan on capturing a LOT of data on how the temps behave (I'm a sucker for pretty graphs). I won't know what to do with it, but now I know where to come to help decipher numbers if there's a problem...

Hi all, A couple months back I asked the group here about some off flavors I was getting, and one suggestion I received was to make sure I controled my fermentation temps. I had been winging it, and decided that correcting that would be my next project. Before I proceed, I am the first to...

I went with borosilicate tubes I picked up on eBay. I come out of my kettles with a 1/2" copper pipe and a 90 degree elbow pointing up. I thought I would be smart and skip the valve and use some tubing to attach the glass to the copper elbow. I figured that if it got bumped, it would (most...

Thank you everyone for the comments and suggestions so far. It sounds like my initial question about maybe using a little too much water during the mash may not be that big of a deal... But also that I have more things to tackle than I originally thought. The yeast I've used so far on the...

Thanks seefresh. Good point. As long as trying to improve things, that is admittedly something that probably needs some attention too. I keep the house cool, but some point along the way I did slip away from keeping the carboys in a water bath. Maybe I've read the words "relax, don't...

Hey gang, I just had a question on the volume of water used for the mash. With a false bottom, hoses, and coil (herms) I have to add more to get the water level above the grain bed. I just made the leap to all-grain a few months ago and the results have been underwhelming (reminds me very...