Long time no see (Return to homebrewing)

[mac_1103]

My reply to this brought down the website!

Nah, that was some guy from the UK asking if there was anything wrong with the website.

I think they had to roll back or lost some cache or something.

Yep, apparently had to restore from a backup that was a few hours old.

 

[Hermit]

You do you, but IMO brewing is an activity that requires GFCI for safety. You're mixing electricity and water, and probably some alcohol on occasion. Modern GFCIs are pretty good with high frequency appliances.

Commercial kitchen 240V receptacles have required GFCI since 2017 NEC, and I haven't heard of any issues. (A lot of kitchens use these for boiling water etc to avoid a Type 1 hood, so there are a lot floating around in commercial use.)

I hope you're right. I heeded your advice and ordered one. I know my attitude about the burner might sound cavalier and I didn't want to make it sound as if I'm not concerned about good safety practices.

Getting closer to my first brew in probably over 5 years. Wine is OK, but not something I really like that much on a daily basis. That's why God gave us beer.

 

[Hermit]

Put the GFCI in. What a pain. It's longer than other breakers. Some interference with the neutral buss bar. I had to move a wire and take the lugs out of some other spots to lower the profile where the breaker went. For a bit I was afraid I'd have to move the wire to the sub panel. But, got it in. Tripped it with the test button a few times.

Got my first brew in five years done. I'd forgotten how messy it could be. I'm glad I got the breaker in. I started thinking of a guy that quit a local steel mill that used induction furnaces. It made him nervous that the railings glowed purple! I'm thinking Holy Crap! St. Elmo's fire!

But, I'm glad brew day was St. Elmo Fire Free.

 

[Hermit]

Also. The induction unit performed pretty much as expected. It has a timer which was a nice feature. The display goes back and forth between the count down timer and the wattage setting. This thing pretty much 'crushed it' on a five gallon batch. I'll probably want to move up to 10 once I get things sorted better.

 

[worlddivides]

Yeah, TDS meters are surprisingly affordable! I picked one up for around $10, and it’s been super handy for keeping an eye on water quality. As for Campden tablets, I was shocked too when I learned you only need a small amount for a big batch. It’s a great way to get more out of a single tablet!

I only used about 0.4 of a tablet on my previous batch, but for my current batch, instead of using the 0.6 of the tablet I cut for the last one, I just used a full tablet... for no real apparent reason, which is odd since I measured out all the other water chemistry adjustments to 0.1 gram level. I will say that no matter how many times I experience it, Campden tablets making a pot of water that smells strongly of chlorine suddenly have zero smell of chlorine in less than a second still amazes me.