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In addition to the problem someone else listed, when unlike metals are bonded together and soaked in an electrolyte, an electrolytic cell is formed. One metal will be protected from rust (hydrogen is evolved on the surface), and the other will slowly start to oxidize (as oxygen is formed). The...

It's not entirely a bad bet. From a physics perspective, roughly equal weights of ethanol and CO2 are produced. CO2 is roughly a thousand times less dense than water (this is our reference density=1 gram/mL). (Normal air is 1.2 grams per liter, so I'm rounding CO2 to 1.5 g/L.) At 5% ABV, you...

I'm sure that's accurate. The problem is that I've read online posts by brewers that say they never sanitize. Sanitizing is like getting a vaccine: it might save you or it might not be necessary, but you have no way to know. The other snag is that (I've read) minor infections can cause off...

Actually, just about everything I've read (formal publications, not blogs or podcasts) says 25 ppm is the max allowable concentration for no-rinse usage. (Be warned that the manufacturer may increase the concentration so the product will still be within parameters if there is a minor production...

I've listened to that interview. I'd like to watch him to try sanitizing silicone, teflon, or polyproplyene with that technique. His arms will get sore from all the shaking, since they don't stay wet for more than milliseconds. If I'm remembering the right interview, he seemed to imply that the...

I'd love to learn to do what you do. Do you balance them by making one single-flavor cup for mead for each pepper, then mixing this with that until you arrive at a good result? Are you able to predict which flavors will be good together, or do the mixed tastes surprise you?

ppm is the same as mg/liter. But easier, you can use Google to do all this math for you. For example: 12.5 ppm * 5 gallons as tablespoons (entered as "12.5/1000000 * 5 gallons to tbsp") > 0.016 US tablespoons But we need to remember that the iodophor is 1% or 1.25% iodine depending on brand...

Additional note: I think I found out why many instructions say to dump the yeast into the cup but "do not stir". It's because they need to come up to 35-40°C before they get wet, otherwise it will actually be rehydrated in cool water instead of hot. So the clumping action will protect the yeast...

Employees of some mushroom farms take serious precautions. Shower. Long sleeves. Face masks. Gloves. Long sleeves. No singing. Stationary, sanitized or sterile air. We don't need to use that abundance of care, since yeast can fight. Most of us carefully sanitize containers, bottles, and hoses...

My fridge uses 80-175 watts when the compressor is on, so let's add a safety factor and assume yours uses 3x as much power. Let's also assume the compressor startup is 3x higher than the normal peak usage. You have two fridges. The peak power consumption would be 175*3*3 watts, or ~1.6 kW. On a...

@specialkayme I suggested gluing it to chopsticks (probably in a X pattern) to mount the resistor in air. If it's in a paint can or soup can, it doesn't need a heat sink, because the can is protection against touching. Mine has a heat sink+fan mostly because I originally used it in an...

Not bad. That comes to $15, shipped and pre-connected for a 30 watt heater including the plug, and you can cut it smaller if you find it's too hot. I wouldn't really want to use a film in a heated chamber, but that's more about aesthetic preference than anything else. (Where would you put it?)...

Once you have the heater wired, test it by putting it on a heat-safe material like ceramic, and plug it in. IMO, you should never touch it while it is powered on, as that is an unnecessary risk. After a minute, unplug it. It should be decently hot. Next leave it plugged in for longer then...

I've attached an image of my heater, and how it must be connected to the wire. Mine uses 12 V, so it doesn't need insulation at the contact points, but yours will require that protection. I needed a heat sink in my original project for fast heat exchange, but you don't. The chop sticks you see...

It sounds like you're at least curious about building it, so here goes. First, the list of materials: Use the paint can you're already using, if you can. 2 chop sticks or pieces of dowel, to help hold the resistor in place. Silicone caulk/sealant, or other glue that can take a wee bit of heat...

Why not bleed the caps a little to find out? You can do it without ruining the seal if you pry them gently. If they aren't gushers and you have safety goggles, leather gloves, a large pot, and a thermometer, you can pasteurize them by heating in hot water to 60-65°C. They don't need to be...

@specialkayme Do you want to build or buy? They're both good options. There are a lot of good suggestions in this thread (my favorite is the appliance bulb augiedoggy suggested, for being (probably) reasonably priced and requiring almost no work), but if you want to make something that would...

I calculated that at the suggested dilution, we should be drinking 12 mL of no-rinse iodophor sanitizer per day. The actual recommendation should probably be less, due to additional iodine which isn't "active" (in a different form, or permanently bound to the complexing agent), so let's say you...

Phosphoric acid does provide some sort of protective coating on mild steel (not passivation). Perhaps it does something similar on stainless? I can't say that it doesn't passivate, but it would make sense that a different protective process is happening.

@Jon Eduardo FYI, vitamin C is ascorbic acid. Fun fact: lemons are 500 ppm vitamin C, but have a much, much higher amount of citric acid. It's convenient stuff to keep around the house any time you want to acidify something! I used it for rinsing (home made) PBW out of bottles yesterday, so the...