Ultimate Recycling at Home

[Tippsy-Turvy]

Beat the re-use of these items:

1) Old VHS video tape case -> variable-speed, low profile stir plate!
Literally took me 45mins from unwrapping the stir plate components to assembling everything.



2) Old neoprene yoga mat -> mash tun insulation!
Wraps around twice, enough material for a double-layer cap and just cut slits for the handles. After a 50mins mash, the heat difference from mash centre to pot wall is 1F.

 

[NeoBrew]

We applaud you, the planet thanks you!

How about some pics of the inside of that stir plate? How did you get the thing so thin?

 

[bradleyhunt]

And where to get the components

 

[IslandLizard]

I really like the cheap neoprene from the yoga mat. When I priced sheets of "diving suit" neoprene I was astonished at the cost although you do get the softer quality and double-sided jersey.

The best insulator is fiber glass, but you need a fairly thick lofty layer, and when it gets wet it's messy and provides zero insulation.

 

[dmcman73]

Looks great! I assume you have the yoga mat off the kettle while your direct firing?

 

[agrazela]

I dig the irony of using exercise equipment to make beer.

I should totally modify my wife's stationary bike into a brew sculpture.

 

[okbecker]

Great Stuff!

 

[Tippsy-Turvy]

And where to get the components

I got the DIY kit from these guys:

http://digitalhomebrew.com/diy-magnetic-stirplate-kit-v2

$34 for everything you need (including 2 stir bars). You just need to find your own case. I used epoxy resin to glue the fan to the case and drilled 3 small holes for the controller, LED and power socket. Check out their demo video where they make a stir plate out of a Tupperware box!

Here's a pic of the inside of the video tape case and the stir plate under 6L of water:

 

[Tippsy-Turvy]

I really like the cheap neoprene from the yoga mat. When I priced sheets of "diving suit" neoprene I was astonished at the cost

Absolutely. I checked out new yoga mats in the stores and they cost next to nothing. Compared to the price I paid many years ago for a tailor-made scuba suit, it still hurts.

Looks great! I assume you have the yoga mat off the kettle while your direct firing?

Yes, think I'm stupid? Of course....but only after smelling burnt plastic the first time I fired up with it!

 

[IslandLizard]

Absolutely. I checked out new yoga mats in the stores and they cost next to nothing. Compared to the price I paid many years ago for a tailor-made scuba suit, it still hurts.

Yes, think I'm stupid? Of course....but only after smelling burnt plastic the first time I fired up with it!

The wet suits are a different, soft kind of neoprene. They use it for AC/Heat Pump tubing insulation too, at 1/2-3/4" thick.

Those yoga mats are a lot stiffer. Maybe not quite as good an insulator. But using 2 layers is an easy sacrifice.

Back in the days (70s) we made our own suits. Boots and gloves from the scraps. They were all black rubber then, no jersey on them, so no stitching either, just glued. Pretty strong actually. We never had a seam rip.

After the sticker shock of the raw sheets, I was thinking of buying some suits off CraigsList and converting them to kettle coozies.

 

[Tippsy-Turvy]

After the sticker shock of the raw sheets, I was thinking of buying some suits off CraigsList and converting them to kettle coozies.

Yup, I thot about that option too but I reckoned the material from a scuba suit would be pretty irregular in shape and would require lots of patching up.

The yoga mat was perfect. Long enough to wrap around twice and still enough material left to cut out 4 semi-circles for the lid. With a bit of glue and, hey presto, 2 double-layered semi-circles for the lid cover.

 

[Tippsy-Turvy]

3) Empty 1.5L soft drinks bottles + used Styrofoam box ---> 41F water for my wort chiller.

The empty bottles are 90% filled with water and kept in the freezer until brew day. About an hour before cooling, I half fill the styrofoam box with water, plonk in 5 frozen bottles and any spare ice I have and close the lid. When it's time to chill, my wort chiller simply draws ~40-43F water from here! Afterwards, the bottles return to the freezer. My current batch of bottles have been reused for ~6 brews and only 1 needed replacing as its cap split.

 

[slym2none]

I use a mattress pad for a twin-sized bed to wrap around my BK. It's tall & narrow, and the pad wraps around the pot twice, and covers the top as well. I am losing at most 3 degrees over a 75 minute mash, and I have a very thin-walled SS 4G pot.

 

[augiedoggy]

Its not hard to see what I recycled in my stirbar build... I took the powersupply from an old router and the fan from an old pc as well as the hardrive magnets... the onlything I bought was the $6 pwm speed controller... (well besides the stirbar and flask.)

Edit*sorry had to resize the picture

 

[augiedoggy]

finally got my picture to work.

 

[Tippsy-Turvy]

4) Old mouse pad ---> thin neoprene heat insulation between stir plate and yeast
(hard to photograph as it's black but it's there under the plastic cover sheet)

 

[bionut]

This is my stir plate. The fan is store bought, but the speed controller is made by me. The same for the enclosure, it is made from some scrap OSB boards.