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My boil kettle broke the solder and leaked so I decided it was a good time to re-build it. I just re-melted the solder and it seemed to have sealed up nicely. My old set-up I just had a series of PVC fittings to house the connections and I had a 5500 watt Ultra Low Watt Density element (the...

I got my electric boil kettle set up with a 5500 W element. Brewed a few batches and things tasted pretty good. Now the last two batches have a scorched flavor. Came on the forum today and BOOM already two threads on scorched beer. HBT is awesome. I read through them and have a hard...

I've upgraded to 10 gallon batches but I'm realizing that my 25-foot wort chiller may be inadequate. I'll give it another try with cold water running full blast though. What are the advantages of a fast wort chill? If I get a 50-footer, will it help much to use the 25-footer in an...

Here are pictures of my element housing. I "borrowed" some ideas from the heat sticks and from a brewing parts link someone gave me here. In Picture 1 I have a slipjoint drain nut. I learned that it needs to be the 1.5-inch nut in order to get a watertight seal. Picture 2 is the 1.5-inch...

Just curious why there is so much talk of efficiency on these forums? For my brewing purposes I got into all-grain because it seemed like a slam dunk money saver over buying craft brews. A corona mill pays for itself by allowing to buy barley in bulk. I figure my consumables run the...

Just curious if anyone has tried running their corona mill with an air wrench. I burnt out a cheap 1/2 inch hammer drill and am wondering what to go for next. I notice the plain ol' 1/2 inch drills (sans hammer) have a slower rpm speed. Would those provide more torque? On the other hand an...

My domestic water heater is a tankless on-demand heater. It has a "shower" function in which I can temporarily set a different temperature than what it normally runs. After 60 minutes it returns to the previous temperature setting. I played with it and I can set it as high as 140*. Would...

I've searched and searched these forums and other brewing sights and I can't find answers... What I have is a 62 qt ss pot with a 1-inch female npt soldered in the side. I have a 4 wire stove cord. And a 5500watt element. I tried putting a 1" pvc coupler over the element housing, but the...

Ok so I'm getting an education on the difference between NPT and NPS threads. I've got my 15 gallon pot. I've got a 5500 watt heater element. I need a female fitting that allows the element to screw down far enough to compress the neoprene gasket. The only thing I have locally is a...

... and my Mt. Hood cones were all brown and desiccated! I picked them and tasted a few and the yellow stuff was still there and still yellow and they tasted like hops. Is this OK to brew with if the cone petals are brown?

How necessary is a control panel? I've seen one e-kettle on these forums where a guy just stuck an element through the pot and plugs it into the outlet (110 v). Could something as simple be done with 220v and say a 5500W element? Would 5500W be enough to boil 12 gallons of wort?

At the local children's zoo the Master Gardeners Club has a beautiful garden. They have tunnels made of concrete reinforcement panels bent into arches. Then they let hops cover these. Is there any reason hops need to grow 15 feet high? Or would tunnels such as this work fine for good yields?

Is there such a thing as a simple electric set up? The propane brewers all seem as easy as buying a $50 turkey frier and setting a pot on it. But I would like to move my operation indoors in the winter where I have easy access to a slop sink and running water. It seems that the only option...

I see a number of brewers mention "going electric". This seems to imply that they were once using propane and switched to electric. Is it cheaper to use electric? Other advantages?

Does anyone have a clone of the old Stevens Point Brewery's - Point Bock? I just remember enjoying that in college as one of the dark beers that could be afforded on a student budget. You could buy it by the case of returnable bottles for much cheaper than all the other 6-pack beers. It...

What is the typical yield of hops bines? I'm wondering how many I should have growing to keep me in hops for the amount I brew which is about 5 gallons/month.

I'm at the mercy of brewing in my basement without a good means of temperature control. I figure I'll just adapt according to whatever the temperatures are. How cold does it have to be for lagers? The thermometer in my brewing area now reads 54*.

I keep reading references to inverted sugar, but I don't know what it is or how you get it or make it? What is the advantage?

How do you know when you've purged all the air out of a corny keg and there is only CO2 left? The way my kegging setup is I have to chill and serve from 2 1/2 gallon kegs. I have 2 of these small kegs. Right now I've got one empty 2 1/2 gallon keg, a full 5 gallon keg, and a near-empty 2...

I just took a sample of my latest batch before kegging and I'm not impressed. This was the one I had thought I underpitched when the gravity was still at .030 after 1 week in the primary. I racked it and it fermented vigorously for another week. This has a distinct "clove" taste or...