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  1. GParkins

    Sous vide question

    Has anyone here in the automation forum used their rig as a sous vide cooker? I picked up a couple of bunches of really nice-looking carrots on my way home from work tonight to use as a first experiment.
  2. GParkins

    Palm Beach County Group Buy?

    Send me a PM if you are between Southern Blvd. and Stuart. I want to put together a big order. I have access to some decent pricing, and am willing to share in order to get the volume up.
  3. GParkins

    Another LHBS casualty...Who is the best online?

    So it looks like Brock's Home Brew in Melbourne, FL has gone Tango Uniform. That leaves exactly one LHBS (that I know of) on the East coast of Florida from Key West to at least as far as Melbourne (Craft Beer Cartel in Fort Lauderdale), and the guy that I spoke to today said he's not sure if...
  4. GParkins

    I May Have Accidentally Built a Bavarian Cave

    I recently upped my brew game from a 5-gallon batch size rig featuring a Rubbermaid cooler mash tun and a cut-open ½-bbl keg boil kettle that sat on a turkey fryer burner. I've spent the best part of a year building it, but I now have an automated ½-bbl electric 3-kettle HERMS rig. I used Ss...
  5. GParkins

    On a search for a cheap 100 C flow meter...Anybody got a source?

    Has anybody here got a source for a relatively inexpensive 5V ½" NPT flow meter with a pulse output that is rated for at least 100℃, and is beer safe? I've seen loads of choices with 80℃ ratings, but I'd like to be able to measure out of the boil kettle. Hi-temp units that I've found run into...
  6. GParkins

    Ss Brewtech kettles and BeerSmith

    I'm just about to christen my new ½-bbl 3-kettle HERMS system, and I'm looking to create a profile in BeerSmith. I'm using the 0.12 stainless steel figure for mash tun specific heat, but I don't know if that is offset by the recirculation or not. Also, does anybody else use the Ss Brewtech...
  7. GParkins

    Recipe Scaling

    I'm not sure if this is the right topic to pose this question, but it seems pretty close. I'm in the later stages of upgrading my rig from a propane-fired 5-gallon keggle and rubbermaid cooler mash tun system to a 3-kettle electric HERMS system with 30-gallon kettles. I have a number of...
  8. GParkins

    Using a 3-wire Dryer Outlet?

    If you live in a house old enough to have a 3-prong dryer cord, this may help: For those of you either using, or contemplating using, your dryer outlet to power your brewing rig, I have come up with a basic design that allows you to have GFCI protection for the brewing rig and keeps a handy...
  9. GParkins

    New BruControl Build

    Hello, CD listeners. Wait...That's Tom Petty. Hello, lazy brewers? Maybe, but automated brewing is as much work as any other method…for a while. I hope it’s less in the long run. TL;DR: Long series of posts about an automated brewstand build using BruControl. I'm Geoff. I'm at the...
  10. GParkins

    The Tedious Part

    It's a task that's duller than Elwood Blues' diet of dry white toast, but if I'm going to build a hybrid PID/Automated control box, I've got to slog through it. I've started translating my schematic into a wire-by-wire cut sheet. I'm finding that I need two or three edits every time I step...
  11. GParkins

    Kal's panel, switchable to CBPi

    I posted in the Electric brewing forum and on Kal's site a few days ago about a panel I've been working on that is based on Kal's outstanding design, but incorporates a couple of things that I thought would be "nice to haves" for what I'd like to brew with. That design has come along nicely, and...
  12. GParkins

    Electric Control Panel Design

    After reading Kal's book from The Electric Brewery about six or seven times in the past year, and thinking a few things through, there are some changes that I wanted to make to his design to suit my own brewing needs/wishes. My basic equipment plan is for two 30-gallon uninsulated kettles for...
  13. GParkins

    Scored a glycol chiller. What to do with it?

    One of my wife's bookkeeping clients just gave me a 1 HP glycol chiller. I have no idea who the manufacturer is, but it's got a Tecumseh compressor/condenser and what looks like about a 10-15 gallon glycol reservoir. I think the unit is about 10 years old, but it seems to work just fine. When...
  14. GParkins

    Palm Beach County well water?

    Has anyone here done an analysis of the well water in the northern part of Palm Beach county? I'm brewing on Sunday, and I'd like to find a definitive source for the pH I can expect from the water I get from the filter kiosk in the vestibule of my local Publix. I'm pretty sure it uses Town of...
  15. GParkins

    Block Diagram Review Help

    Hello, I have started planning an advanced homebrew/pilot brewery. I'm looking to up my process control game by a bunch, and I've given some hard looks to both PID and Arduino/R-Pi controlled systems. Still not sure how much automation I want to use. I've visually debugged the attached...
  16. GParkins

    Grain crush evaluation help

    So I got a Monster Mill 3 for Christmas, and I think I have it set up OK, but I'm not sure what a great crush is supposed to like like. I had my guy add on a pound of 2-row to my last order, and just ran half of it through the mill. Below is a closeup of the result. I would appreciate an...
  17. GParkins

    Stunned. Just stunned.

    My first all-grain batch was brewed on 12/24, and I cracked the first bottle tonight, to check progress. I'm flat-out blown away at how much this beer resembles what I set out to brew. Thanks to everyone on this forum who answered my questions. Huge confidence booster. It's an American...
  18. GParkins

    Beer Alchemy Dead Space Question

    For good or for bad, I have thrown my chips in with Beer Alchemy. One capability I haven't sorted out yet is how to compensate malt quantities and initial water volumes to accommodate dead space in my setup. I'm a cooler brewer, with a converted stainless steel keg as a brewpot. I can...
  19. GParkins

    Possible solution to the racking/oxygenation problem for secondary fermentation?

    This may sound stoopid, but what if you dropped a chunk of dry ice into your secondary fermenter just before racking? Wouldn't that displace all of the oxygen with CO2? How big a chunk would you need? Is dry ice even close to sterile? Would the cold spot where the dry ice landed stress a glass...
  20. GParkins

    Counterflow chiller idea...Doable?

    Here in South Florida, water temps out of our well aren't what anyone would call remotely chilly, even in January. It's got me thinking. I just brewed a batch of a Sierra Nevada clone, and I had a horrible time with my CFC, due to 2 whole-hop additions during the boil and no screen (!) on my...
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