StumpyJohnson
Member
SO!
I've learned some valuable lessons on life and brewing and I've only brewed one batch. What follows is naked ignorance, impatience, folly, and the rebirth of a new and more learned brew meister.
History
-I fell in love with beer...mayhem ensued.
-I decided to brew my own beer...more mayhem.
A few months back a friend began brewing his own beer. Always prodding me to join the fun, baiting my manic, obsessive mad scientist streak.
I finally gave in, brewed an anchor steam clone partial mash batch with his equipment, and subsequently decided I would brew the world.
I began purchasing turkey deep fryers, igloo containers, pipe hose fittings, copper, brass, stainless, couplings, pressure fit compression street sweat npt mpt fpt silicone polyethylene false bottomed threaded 90's with counter flowing aerated wort chilling sparge fermenters.
The parts piled up and a non leaded brass frankenstein beer golem began clanking around my garage beating me about the head, neck, chest and face area with a convoluted copper sparge arm fabricated out of wild eyed manic passion...It kicked down the garage door and spewed cold water and sweat into my mud room. Decided that it needed a new lair and claimed the aft 3rd of my cramped home as its new domain. Its ever evolving form commanded me to create new and more bizarre aparatus for it to lounge upon in its hulking glory.
The shrine had commanded me to build it and I obeyed with cult follower fervor, drooling and cussing. Snot and metal shavings tarnished my desperate beer soaked brain.
And alas, my proverbial wad blown with such distance and blast radius that I was driven crazy....and left with something out of a unairable mythbusters misshap.
And yet I still breath. Barely.
You see, I'm a tinkerer. A do it yourselfer. A designer, and an engineer. As I think many in this community are. And rightfully so...our desire to make for ourselves what a world of commercial industry has bastardized is great. Our need to drink and be happy is pressing. Impatience and Ignorance our enemies.
I spent hours researching, in a cursory manner, the elements of my brew haven...knowing little about the details...like say, basic plumbing principles.
I spent hours fabricating the shiny things I saw in diy brew blogs. I looked at the weldless stainless fittings with a *pffttt* and commenced to string together a copper, brass, nylon, teflon ball valve that works perfectly. Its 11 feet long weighs 67 pounds and requires a full set of mechanics tools and a somalian midget to operate. (apology's to any somalian midgets)
I have a string of reciepts that I used to wrap presents in, each with over 98 items on it, that attest to the fact that I could have afforded that nice stainless steel valve, the high temp silicone tubing, or the high pressure propane burner.
Had I simply stopped, slapped myself, drank a beer and taken a breath...a quick analysis of my progress would have immediately pointed to the fact that...
-There is no need to reinvent the wheel, people with my same mindset went through this same process many many years ago, and put out products to solve most brewing challenges.
Not to say that home fabrication isn't effective BUT
-Do your homework, see what others are doing...price your materials and quantify your TIME. Then decide if that part you've been eyeing online is worth the price.
Which incidentally, brings me to another point...instead of walking into home depot and raiding the plumbing aisle...
-Learn the basics of plumbing, learn the difference between flared fitttings, compression, sweat, street, barbed...
and
-PLAN your system from start to finish first...price it out and see what's worth doing yourself and where you can benefit from someone elses idea.
Lastly...
-Be patient! The 2 week wait for that sweet part or piece of equipment may be a hair pulling wait...but its better than blowing a chunk of cash building a hunk of **** just so you can have it now.
In summation...I'm an idiot.
But, I'm smart enough to face that fact and look back on my recent experience and learn a few things. And at the very least, I look forward to improving my rig. Lessons come fast, in life and brewing it seems. Pay attention and you may learn something, or, like me...you may end up half drunk on half carbonated homebrew...and thinking to yourself.
Pfft...i could build that.
I've learned some valuable lessons on life and brewing and I've only brewed one batch. What follows is naked ignorance, impatience, folly, and the rebirth of a new and more learned brew meister.
History
-I fell in love with beer...mayhem ensued.
-I decided to brew my own beer...more mayhem.
A few months back a friend began brewing his own beer. Always prodding me to join the fun, baiting my manic, obsessive mad scientist streak.
I finally gave in, brewed an anchor steam clone partial mash batch with his equipment, and subsequently decided I would brew the world.
I began purchasing turkey deep fryers, igloo containers, pipe hose fittings, copper, brass, stainless, couplings, pressure fit compression street sweat npt mpt fpt silicone polyethylene false bottomed threaded 90's with counter flowing aerated wort chilling sparge fermenters.
The parts piled up and a non leaded brass frankenstein beer golem began clanking around my garage beating me about the head, neck, chest and face area with a convoluted copper sparge arm fabricated out of wild eyed manic passion...It kicked down the garage door and spewed cold water and sweat into my mud room. Decided that it needed a new lair and claimed the aft 3rd of my cramped home as its new domain. Its ever evolving form commanded me to create new and more bizarre aparatus for it to lounge upon in its hulking glory.
The shrine had commanded me to build it and I obeyed with cult follower fervor, drooling and cussing. Snot and metal shavings tarnished my desperate beer soaked brain.
And alas, my proverbial wad blown with such distance and blast radius that I was driven crazy....and left with something out of a unairable mythbusters misshap.
And yet I still breath. Barely.
You see, I'm a tinkerer. A do it yourselfer. A designer, and an engineer. As I think many in this community are. And rightfully so...our desire to make for ourselves what a world of commercial industry has bastardized is great. Our need to drink and be happy is pressing. Impatience and Ignorance our enemies.
I spent hours researching, in a cursory manner, the elements of my brew haven...knowing little about the details...like say, basic plumbing principles.
I spent hours fabricating the shiny things I saw in diy brew blogs. I looked at the weldless stainless fittings with a *pffttt* and commenced to string together a copper, brass, nylon, teflon ball valve that works perfectly. Its 11 feet long weighs 67 pounds and requires a full set of mechanics tools and a somalian midget to operate. (apology's to any somalian midgets)
I have a string of reciepts that I used to wrap presents in, each with over 98 items on it, that attest to the fact that I could have afforded that nice stainless steel valve, the high temp silicone tubing, or the high pressure propane burner.
Had I simply stopped, slapped myself, drank a beer and taken a breath...a quick analysis of my progress would have immediately pointed to the fact that...
-There is no need to reinvent the wheel, people with my same mindset went through this same process many many years ago, and put out products to solve most brewing challenges.
Not to say that home fabrication isn't effective BUT
-Do your homework, see what others are doing...price your materials and quantify your TIME. Then decide if that part you've been eyeing online is worth the price.
Which incidentally, brings me to another point...instead of walking into home depot and raiding the plumbing aisle...
-Learn the basics of plumbing, learn the difference between flared fitttings, compression, sweat, street, barbed...
and
-PLAN your system from start to finish first...price it out and see what's worth doing yourself and where you can benefit from someone elses idea.
Lastly...
-Be patient! The 2 week wait for that sweet part or piece of equipment may be a hair pulling wait...but its better than blowing a chunk of cash building a hunk of **** just so you can have it now.
In summation...I'm an idiot.
But, I'm smart enough to face that fact and look back on my recent experience and learn a few things. And at the very least, I look forward to improving my rig. Lessons come fast, in life and brewing it seems. Pay attention and you may learn something, or, like me...you may end up half drunk on half carbonated homebrew...and thinking to yourself.
Pfft...i could build that.