Rather than start a new thread, I'll update here for now. We've researched starter kits, and plan on purchasing a "deluxe" kit from
Austin Homebrew Supply along with a bottling bucket and an extra, larger carboy. We'll start with some pale ale extracts.
We've located at least one sanke keg we can modify into a boiler, and will do so soon. At the moment, I'm looking for any information
on choosing piping and hardware for keg conversions. Please help if you know of a good link.
Meanwhile, my brother and I have been drooling over all the incredible projects featured in the forums. All are testaments to the ingenuity and engineering of home brewers. I've all but concluded I should skip lautering from a cooler and build a HERMS system asap.
Like many people, we've been toying with names for our pseudo-brewery. Our current favorite is
Mason & Dixon Fermented Beverage Company, with each beer themed after the "snake oil" or
quack salesmen of the last century. For the IPA think: "Dr. Hopenheimer's Cure-all Remedy." "Mason & Dixon" both because I'm in the middle of the Pynchon novel and because our family straddles the line between Philadelphia and DC.
Let me finish by noting that many of the brewers here appear to be engineers, programmers, and tinkers extraordinaire -- indeed, I am a certified dilettante welder, mechanic, electrical engineer and (soon) brewer. But my day job is as an academic, specifically political philosophy. Certainly, there are precious few of us who can find an engine much less change the oil in it. So, I wonder how many others here are closet students of the humanities? Do we not have something unique and valuable to contribute to the forum? So we cannot engineer a computer controlled HERMS system -- but we
can offer the literary-cultural commentary!