Recent content by fall-line

I just used a short piece (~2 inch) of 14 guage romex. It worked perfectly. I wrapped it in electrical tape once I was done to ensure that it didn't come loose, but it fit in there snugly even without.

dbhammel, your control board looks very similar. I would guess that you would want to remove those two plugs at the top and jumper the on on the left in your photo, similar to how I did mine in this photo: That said, yours may be wired differently despite looking essentially the same. Please...

You'd think this would be a small thing, but I think about installing a valve at the top of my kettles on the return port for just this reason every time I brew.. *ow, my back*

Wow - nice set up you have at your disposal! I'd definitely put the extra effort into wrapping each fermenter and setting them up to be controlled independently. Remember that the exothermic heating capabilities of your yeast during fermentation can raise the temp of the fermenter(s) by several...

Thanks to @EthenWithAnE for pointing out my images were broken. I've moved the site containing them to a new server. The changes would have taken a few hours to fully take effect due, but they should be visible again for everyone at this point.

twalsh, I definitely still plan to. That being said, I recently took a new job that's kept me really busy. I've also gotten a good feel for the manual operation of my system, so I haven't felt too much internal pressure to get this done. It'll probably be several months, but I look forward to...

Thanks, all! It sure has been a lot of fun sharing these experiences with you. Even though much of the real hard work was done by my contractor, it has been pretty fulfilling to see our ideas come to fruition. Designing and building something like this gets under your skin for sure... ...We're...

Thanks, MetallHed. Here are a few more pictures to wrap up the build. A few more items of trim to be added, and some site cleanup to go.. but it's pretty much complete. I drank a beer and grilled some food the other night in my new kitchen area. Despite being 34º, I loved every minute of it...

Love the style. Great choices on the layout too. Well done.

Oh yeah, I went through that too. I went with the brushed finnish, which I am happy with. The mirror polish option would have shown smudges and stuff even more than this. I went with the thinest gauge they had in stainless.. I think it was 24 gauge? Thicker would have been nice, but the prices...

Looking good, Jon! That's a nice, easy to follow layout.

Yep, the stainless panels came from a local supplier. If you just search around a bit in your area for a metal shop, it should be pretty easy to find.

Here is the relevant section of a video made by Jaybird who manufactured my excellent false bottom, showing what it takes to remove in place. Your pizza pan will act a little different, but the concept is the same: http://youtu.be/Dl0z-MUQElw?t=2m5s

It's easy enough to remove the fixed tube. You just need a tiny bit of play in your false bottom, which even the best will have. I've got full width 15" false bottoms in my brew kettle and mash tun, and just have to wiggle them a little to get the room I need to unscrew and remove the dip tube...

Glad you were able to enjoy them! You'll find that most beers really hit their stride after several weeks in the bottle or keg, so the more you can keep in your pipeline the better. If my pipeline is running dry I will drink a beer that has only been aging a couple of weeks, but every time I do...