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Its hard to beat mason jars for yeast storage. I usually keep about 10 strains on hand in the small 4oz ball jelly jars. All of them are from overbuilding starters. Your problem with pressure build up can be solved by simply unscrewing the lid to burp the pressure periodically for the first week...

Both of these scenarios would result in destroyed beer. The vacuumed bottle would loose nearly all of its carbonation. The CO2 flushed bottle would suffer nearly the same result from the large headspace created by pouring out half the bottle's content. Both of the bottles would suffer from...

One of those hop stoppers looks like it would cause transfer problems rather than solve them. A fine mesh filter sitting low in the cone would more than likely become clogged with flocced yeast and trub to the point where you might not be able to get any flow from your racking port. This problem...

The problem is more than likely a connection issue with the spring pins on the removable controller not making proper contact with the mounting base. Try reinstalling the controller and pressing it against the base. If this does not work set the temperature to ambient (probe reading) and then to...

I recall the drain port on mine having an extremely poor flow rate, almost as if it was clogged by something. The hole in the bottom of the tank that feeds the drain is fairly small (<3/8"). I doubt it is capable of feeding your pump at a rate greater than or equal too its capacity.

I have two grainfather fermenters that only have a single 1.5 TC connection in the lid. I have had success dropping hops through the small valves by using a 6" 1.5 TC spool and opening and closing the valve a full 180 degrees. Tapping on the side of the spool with a wooden spoon can help release...

If all of your upstream brewing processes have been executed without error, proper counter pressure bottling is the only way your will be able to transfer your hop forward beers into bottles with lasting quality.

You could get Spikes PRV and change out the spring for a stiffer one. You also might be able to simply add spring force to the default spring by threading the spring retainer deeper into the valves body. Anyone with a Spikes brewing PRV care to share if this is possible?

Good luck with the mod. You will find that you can maintain very stable temps with very cool glycol. I have found these cycle times to work very good for the grainfather conicals and a glycol reservoir at 25F: Fermentation Temps 62-66F, hysteresis 0.3F, Cycle Time 12-15s ON, 500-600s OFF...

I'm not sure I follow just what kind of setup you have rigged with your fermenter, but I would be concerned about running internal pressures exceeding 1.5 psi. The internal diameter of these fermenters is about 11.5 inches, which would make the surface area in which the pressure is acting about...

I try to get the PRV to release at 1.5 psi and reseal at 0.5 psi. I dont think these fermenters can hold much pressure. The release works with pretty good repeatability but the reseal is hit or miss at the moment. I think I need to try a different valve that has a larger seat for the sealing...

Sounds like you are off to a better start with your current batch. A proper whirlpool followed by a long rest can really help settle the trub, allowing you transfer very little to the fermenter. This is how I have my fermenter setup at the start of fermentation: The blow off cane is from...

If I wish to end up with a full 5 gallons of beer in my keg with minimal excess. I usually shoot for 5.5 - 5.6 gallons of wort in the fermenter. You should try to minimize the amount of trub you transfer to the fermenter from your hotside process. Doing so will get you a better finished product...

You might be able to add a small rims tube like heater for each of your fermentation vessels. The system would work by isolating the glycol in the fermenter's jacket and pumping it past a heater cartridge in a small circuit. You can use the alarm functions on your auber controllers to provide...

As far as I am aware, there are no modifiable settings that can be changed on any common thermostat, that would fix the problem of overshooting a setpoint temperature when large temperature differentials are utilized (glycol vs setpoint temps). The frequency in which the thermostat reads the...

Your situation (crashing one vessel, while fermenting in another) can easily be solved by controlling the duty cycle of each pump in you glycol chiller. The effects of a cooling cycle are not immediately realized by the thermostats controlling your fermenters. Therefore the energy transfer, in...

I recommend full disassembly of the carb stone between brew cycles. I went 3-4 complete batches before disassembly and found quite a bit of beer residue inside the valve and the tube leading to the stone. The outer teflon seal was a bit difficult to remove for the first time. The barb fitting is...

The construction of the sample valve is very similar to a common picnic tap. There is a rubber plunger style gasket that snaps onto a stem which is raised or lowered by turning the valves handle. The first thing I would check is to make sure that the locking collar is properly secured on the...

To answer your first question you should do what duncan.brown advised above about using the ball lock blowoff valve to allow any blow off to be collected into a container during high krausen. You might need to purchase a barbed fitting and some tubing to make this connection. While I do not know...

It sounds like the my suspicion of stronger spring pins might be correct, or perhaps the use of weaker magnets. Either way, you more than likely can fix the problem by simply placing an additional magnet on the back side of the mounting base. The current magnet can be used to hold the additional...