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It’s a little tricky to estimate without having a means to measure the DO. Ultimately, it is how much sugar you need for the yeast to scrub the O2 that has diffused in. I can’t say for sure, but maybe one of the LODO guys may have an opinion on it. I typically start spunding with 8-10 points...

Above has covered it, but I think the primary concern is oxygenation. The CO2 blanket is a myth as gaseous diffusion per Fick’s law will drive oxygen into the headspace and fermenting beer. I think transferring into kegs after a few days would address O2 concerns as long as you don’t mind the...

The method I use is to fill keg with star San and push that through to another keg on a running basis to sanitize and purge kegs of oxygen. I push around 14 psi and have spunding valve on receiving keg at 10 psi. When packaging the beer, I use the same pressure settings as above so end with...

UV systems for water are arranged in a coaxial tube to ensure light penetration. Check out the link below for the details on a well designed system. Oh yeah, needs micron filtration as well to ensure the glass doesn’t foul and interfere with the light...

I also have a UV-C whole house unit - if you have one anyhow, then sure, one less thing to worry about, but would be costly for a unitasker. Funny enough, I never thought about the water for the purposes you mention, since I am also concerned with germs on the surface of the container I’m using...

Just a short comment on carbonating at higher temperatures, you don’t use more CO2. Because of the higher temperature, it requires higher pressure to reach equilibrium of the desired volume. If you disconnected it and cooled it later for served, you would observe the pressure drop while the...

I live in the south, so put a rechargeable desiccant in there to absorb the humidity and prevent it from freezing on the sides.

It’s a bad idea to put it all on your chiller - instead drop it to a reasonable level (I usually stop around approach temp of 10F). The reason for this is that all that heat dropped in your glycol will push refrigerant temperature high, which will over-pressure your compressor and kill it. It...

The trials of @mongoose33 are instructive of the thermodynamics at play if you are interested to read those threads - turned to a soap opera with a classic villain at one point it seemed. For higher ABVs, you can push the glycol lower, but for normal range, any lower will start ice formation...

Ahh, understood. I had a Johnson, so just attached on the back with no flush mounting. Well, the body of those controllers isn’t sealed so will be exposed to the humid environment. The bead dehumidifiers can keep it pretty dry though, so I would expect the controller shouldn’t see too much...

When probes fail, they typically fail open, meaning you would read infinite resistance. Since you only note the issue when pump is running, I would measure the resistance with the probe submerged and the pump running and see if you get very large swings in resistance. If so, you have a faulty...

The The measurement works by tracking the resistance change of the probe and translates that into temperature. Measure the resistance of the probe (ohms), assuming your leads are small enough to fit in the connector. If not, put some small gauge wire in the holes and hold the probes against...

Not sure what you mean by recessing - into the collar? On my old collar, I drilled a through hole, mounted the controller on the back and plugged the hole with some foam insulation and ran it into a container with some water in it to avoid large temp swings and stratification effect of the air.

Have to double checked your manifold does not have check valves? I didn’t think mine did, but discovered it after failing to bleed pressure from one leg to an open leg… would be worth a check. If you confirm your manifold does have check valves, then it’s likely an overcarb on the keg that...

I don’t do cycles of rinsing, but a similar volume of fresh water. As with above, I used to do a PBW hot recirc every brew day, but have reduced it to when I see noticeable beer stone deposits on my boil kettle. As an aside, there are now TC pump head upgrades for standard pumps similar to the...

The wild fluctuations look like an electrical issue. I had an issue on my hot side controller that did the same thing and it was caused by oxidation of the contacts - removing and reseating it solved that problem. Unfortunately, I don’t have an Ice Master, so can’t help on the specifics of the...

Depending on what mineral water you prefer, you can use a calculator at the link below, which the gent developed because he had exactly the same thought in mind… I used it myself, but haven’t done side by side taste tests. https://khymos.org/2012/01/04/mineral-waters-a-la-carte/

Beer gas - I don’t mind the light carb in the cold brew and didn’t want to faff about with maintaining beer gas levels with alternating CO2 and Nitrogen for the Nitro beers.

I’ve got carb and nitro taps. Enjoy the side by side of same brew served differently as well a nitro cold brew coffee made to my caffeine preference. Beer gas fills are more expensive (and doesn’t stretch as far since it is gas and not liquid like a CO2 tank), so I keep both. If you had majority...

I have a 2V K-RIMs setup with controller temp probe at the outlet of the kettle. I also have a probe in both the mash tun and boil kettle (more on that later). My process is to do a full volume mash but targeting a grist ratio of 1.25 qt / lb in the mash tun, which I do by setting the autosparge...