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I tried it last night and I think that pretty much sums it up! I won't be buying any more of it, except perhaps at a restaurant with limited beer options, but I was rather impressed with it considering what I expected from AB, given all their recent 'fake craft beers' (shock top, beach bum, etc)

My first question would be how much water the steam generator can actually handle at one time. If you can only fit 2oz of water in there at once, heating a whole mash would likely take many refills. And can the espresso machine handle continuous back-to-back steam cycles without damage? Just...

Personally, I am usually in the 70's for efficiency and I would be very skeptical of my own measurements if I calculated something in the mid-high 80's all of a sudden. How certain are you of all your measurements? (gravity, volume, and grain weight) Not doubting your numbers per se, as it's...

I use a shield made of cheap aluminum flashing. I just made a cylinder a bit larger than my keggle, giving a couple inches on all sides, and cut a slot in it for the valve to stick through. Not a bad idea to cut some other slots near the bottom for air inlet for the burner if needed. All it...

I brewed a batch of this a couple weeks ago, and we're really tearing through the keg now - it really is a great quaffer! If I wasn't in dire need of getting some other beers brewed to have some more variety in the house, I'd be doing another batch of this immediately! Thanks for the recipe...

I've used windsor exactly once, not realizing how low the attenuation was, and was not impressed with the results - I wound up pitching S-04 onto it to try to drop the FG some more, but in the end the beer wasn't that great. I am not a fan of sweet beers unless they're bigger beers to begin...

water/wort/water seems like an inventive idea. But, I've got two concerns: 1) starting with a traditional CFC, would it actually be any cheaper to add that third layer of tubing rather than just increasing the length of the standard design a bit for equal performance? 2) the cross section of...

Beautiful. You've definitely raised the bar in the field of DIY brewing rigs... This is definitely a huge inspiration! I'm just getting started with the whole HERMS thing, and your project gives me great ideas about where I will want to go with mine when I am finally done being a broke...

yes, provided you don't crimp it, thus my warnings - you're just modifying the existing bend in the dip tube to pick the end up a little further. I bent 4 of my dip tubes in a few minutes without any tools (just over my knee) and they came out perfectly fine and fully usable, so it's really not...

one thing to bear in mind is that if your cooler is WAY too big for the batch you're mashing, the small thermal mass and large head space is going to make it cool off faster so it may not maintain temps very well if your cooler insulation isn't great. partial mashes with 5ish pounds of grain...

I haven't done what you are asking about, but before you go chopping any dip tubes, bear in mind that if you just gently bend the dip tube over your knee (or better yet, use a proper tubing bender - you just don't want to crimp it) you can raise it an inch or two off the bottom, no irreversible...

+1... if you are just following a parts list and a sketch, rather than making educated choices about what you want, you're probably not going to end up with exactly what you want, and may very well waste some money in the process.

Well, my comment was more specifically in regards to using just one yeast for all your beers - I don't doubt that with enough care you could keep one strain going for a long time. Most people use at least a few different yeast strains to cover various beer styles. I use at least 2-3 strains...

I use a 25' IC in my keggle with no significant problems... What prevents you from doing so?

With CO2 the gauge doesn't tell you what's "left in the tank" really. It will stay at a constant pressure (at a particular temperature) until the tank runs out of liquid CO2 and then drop rapidly. If you had a leak bad enough to start dropping your tank pressure at all within that short a...

There is plenty of info out there on making yeast starters, which you should read if you haven't already. First, I think you will want a starter bigger than one pint, especially if you're thinking of only pitching half of it, and ESPECIALLY if you're doing any kind of bigger beers. A 1-liter...

I know you've already found your answer, but I just thought I'd mention... If you do a mash out, the sparge temp is always the same since your grain bed will already be up to temp - this is one of the reasons I choose to do a mash out, it makes the sparge temp a no-brainer. Beersmith does the...

I was just about to say it wouldn't be too appealing to me if you have to use their proprietary software with it (especially if it's geared toward kids), but it looks like they offer an SDK for it, so it should be pretty easy to tie it in to some custom software

Well you could just go all out and jump to a direct fired MLT, or even a RIMS or HERMS system with stainless kettles. Then not only would you avoid plastic, but you'd have a really awesome brewing rig as well. If you can sell the idea to your SWMBO by making a big deal out of the zero plastic...

Best diagram evar? :p