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There seems to be plenty of comps and they are listed on the AHA website and also on MHP website. It's been fun entering the comps but at least with MHP the beer score counts even if I didn't medal. Also get me brewing beer I would probably not have done before. I've enjoyed it.
 
Not today, but a few days ago, Mr Fed Ex delivered the Jaded Hydra I ordered. Looking forward to using it.
I timed mine a couple weekends ago and it went from boiling to 180F in 1 minutes, 130F in 2 minutes, 108F in 3 minutes. I have a friend who brews 10 gallon batches and when I was brewing with him a few months ago, his pump went out so he couldn't use his plate chiller. We popped in my hydra and he was blown away by how much faster it worked. Sometimes I wonder if there is magic in play...
 
I timed mine a couple weekends ago and it went from boiling to 180F in 1 minutes, 130F in 2 minutes, 108F in 3 minutes. I have a friend who brews 10 gallon batches and when I was brewing with him a few months ago, his pump went out so he couldn't use his plate chiller. We popped in my hydra and he was blown away by how much faster it worked. Sometimes I wonder if there is magic in play...
This time of year our tap water is around 81 degrees. While I'm sure that the initial temperature drop will be quite quick, getting down that last 15-20 degrees will take some creative thinking.
 
This time of year our tap water is around 81 degrees. While I'm sure that the initial temperature drop will be quite quick, getting down that last 15-20 degrees will take some creative thinking.
Definitely! Though the summer I used kveik yeast so only needed to get down to 100F. The rest of the year, I usually stall around 85F and move it to a freezer to chill the rest of the way. I have considered using a pre-chiller but that would mean severely throttling my flow unless I splurged on another hydra. My next attempt, I think I will loop my hose (about 50 ft) in an ice bath. I have no idea how much heat will transfer through the hose, but it is worth a shot.
 
My 1.4 gal siphonless Little Big Mouth Bubbler for mad scientist brew Experiments. And for just bottling 1 gallon batches instead of kegging all the time. Have not bottled much in 3 years. Tons of glass and PET bottles feeling left out and forgotten.
 

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A new hummingbird feeder that I ordered 2 weeks ago from Amazon. (the old one was getting overrun by bees and yellowjackets, mostly yellowjackets, so I wanted one they can't get into) I think the last hummer left a couple of days ago; that's the last time I saw her. But it's satisfying seeing the insects trying to steal the nectar and can't get to it :) I will leave it up for another week or two in case there are stragglers migrating through.
 
Definitely! Though the summer I used kveik yeast so only needed to get down to 100F. The rest of the year, I usually stall around 85F and move it to a freezer to chill the rest of the way. I have considered using a pre-chiller but that would mean severely throttling my flow unless I splurged on another hydra. My next attempt, I think I will loop my hose (about 50 ft) in an ice bath. I have no idea how much heat will transfer through the hose, but it is worth a shot.
I also deal with hot ground water and while I've never tried that...that isn't going to work.

Here's how I fixed the issue, cheaply.

Buy a cheap immersion pump, this is the one I use.

Next, locate a five gallon bucket. You're a homebrewer, you have many of these. Last, you'll need some tubing and the appropriate fitting to connect the output side of your pump to the input on your chiller.

On brew day, you chill as normal with your hot ground water until you approach diminishing returns. Once that is accomplished, you place your immersion pump in your five gallon bucket, then run just enough waste water off of your chiller into your bucket to prime the pump. With this done, fill your bucket with the appropriate volume of ice.* Next, you place the exhaust hose from your chiller into your bucket of ice water and attach the pump to the input on your chiller. Lastly, you turn on your pump.

You're now chilling your batch with a closed loop of recirculating ice water. Your temps will plummet, especially if you have a whirlpool rig. It's really easy to overshoot your pitching temp, especially with ales.

I hope you found this useful. It's an issue that I struggled with for years and now that I'm using this method, I feel like I'm getting away with a fast one whenever I brew in July or August.


*During the summer, when I keep the faucet of my shower all the way to the left, I use 10lbs of ice to chill to ale pitching temps and 20lbs of ice to hit lager pitching temps. That's an added 3-5 bucks per batch. That's not an inconsequential figure, but I'm happy to pay it if it allows me to use the yeast that I want to use, pitch that yeast without delay, and brew the beer I want to drink.
 
I’m curious as to how well that thing works. It looks and sounds interesting! Please let us know once you use it and how you like it. That’s neat

Forgot to post these pictures of the empty 6gal Torpedo Keg with a hopstopper keg edition.

Here you can see the gory mess that was left behind. That's three ounces of pellet hops and whatever material managed to fall out via finings during the beer's stay in the keg.
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With the beer transferred into the serving keg, it was clear that there was a good portion of beer still remaining in the 6gal dry hops keg, so I crushed the dry hops keg with a brutal 50psi force carb and spent several days observing the evolution of the beer that remained in contact with the hops while the serving keg carbed in a more conventional fashion. All told, I was able to enjoy several pints off of the dry hopping keg while confirming that I pulled the main batch off the hops at the correct time. That helps to take the guesswork out of dry hopping duration. Cool.

Finally, the clean up. I was dreading this. This is what the keg looked like after a quick turn on the jet washer. There's still some stuff stuck to the sides of the keg, but the filter looks remarkably clean. After a further bit of rinsing on the jet washer, I stuck it on my keg washer and I saw no reason to break the keg down and extract the filter. I think it's ready to go for the next batch. Amazing!
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Hope this was useful.
 
20 gram jar of Incognito Mosaic hops and 20 gram jar of Incognito Citra hops. See: INCOGNITO Not quite sure how I'm going to use them yet, but couldn't help myself.
Fascinating! I had no idea that existed, thank you for cueing me in!

Sadly, I only purchased my first packets of Cryo earlier this year and I'm currently looking forward to using them maybe in November. That's one of the things that sucks about being an old homebrewer: your ambitions, curiosity, and desire to try new things are inversely proportional to the space within your freezer.
 
Hoff Steven’s 1/4 keg… what the hell was I thinking? Oh yeah I could use it like a pin cask.
:lol::agressive:
Wow. Talk about nostalgia! Wasn't aware any of those were still in existence. I've never seen one in real life but remember reading about them ages ago. I always wondered how they kept the wooden bung from shooting out like a middle.
 
A new lid gasket for the fermenter that got ignored during three months of double shifts. I'm still not sure how the fruit flies got in, but they are resourceful.

Also, went to Total Wine after teaching this morning for the latest edition of Beer Hunter. Picked up some randomness, and they had Russian River in stock. Some Pliny, some Blind Pig, and a few bottles of something new, Mosaic Stack.
 
Have only spunded a batch or two but results were positive enough to make the modest purchase of a couple more units. These, along with a few dollars in additional gear should be worth it for the natural carbonation alone if not in addition to beverage enhancements. Also, they can be used to simply monitor pressure in stored/aging vessels
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Not in the mail but from the neighbor across the street. 4 ball locks that the neighbor, who is quite the scrounger, got from his brother, who inherited them with the house he bought earlier this year.

I was in the garage and Ray came over and asked if I could use the other 4 of those “canisters” that he still had. I had bought 2 of them a few months ago for $30 each. He said he needed the room so he could finish the inside of his garage and just needed to get rid of some of the clutter. I offered to pay him but he said he just wanted them gone.

All of the kegs were clean and had a few ounces of water or sanitizer in the bottom and 3 of them were pressurized. The other one was clean but the lid o-ring was in the bottom of the keg.

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It's so gracious of you to help out your neighbor ... and just as well you didn't inform him that empty kegs kept on newly purchased premises invites ghosts
 
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Got a keg today but not in the mail. I was riding my bike in a nearby development when I saw a corny keg out of the corner of my eye. Trash Day - one man's trash is another man's treasure! It's in nice condition and holds pressure.


 
New gen 3 Triconical fermzilla just arrived! And the extension arm for my Brewzilla as well
Have you pressure tested yours yet?

I got the tri-clamp lid and I'm having a hard time getting a seal on both that lid is well as the yeast jar. No problem with the three piece tri clamp for the butterfly valvle though.
 
Got my grain order today for my upcoming Christmas Ale I am brewing soon. Gonna be nice and malty and the spices/other additions will consist of 2 1/2 pounds orange blossom honey, Madagascar vanilla beans, allspice, coriander, cinnamon sticks, light molasses, nutmeg and grated orange peels. Oh and I used Northern Brewer this time as they had certain grains that I only wanted to use and they shipped it within 6 days so they are getting better at order turn around.

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Have you pressure tested yours yet?

I got the tri-clamp lid and I'm having a hard time getting a seal on both that lid is well as the yeast jar. No problem with the three piece tri clamp for the butterfly valvle though.
I had no issues at all with my pressure test. I put some food grade lube on all of the o-rings and silicone seals and it held 15psi like a champ
 
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