Recent content by BrewDaddy

What about dry hopping?? Should one dry hop at fermentation temp and then CC, should the hops be removed if there is an extended CC, or Should one dry hop cold and is there a real difference in flavour compared to a fermentation temp dry hop???

I have been looking at YeastCalc - using the Troester stirplate option, it seems to imply that, even with an old smack pack, I can use a 1.5 litre to get the correct amount of yeast for many brews. For example, a 25% viable smack pack (25 billion cells) into a 1.5 litre starter will get me 236...

Curious to know everyone's thoughts on when to time a dry hop and a cold crash. There seems to be lots of varying thoughts out there, like yeast will strip hop aroma when cold crashed, or that a vegetal flavour can arise from cold dry hopping. Originally I had planned to dry hop (in primary) 1...

Yeah sorry for not reading every page, I tried but got confused. Anyway, I did get the feeling that a pot is no good so I have just bought an LED dimmer. Sorry for bringing up an old topic.

Ok thanks. Seems to be very hard to find a 3w one in New Zealand at a reasonable price. Are there other options that are real cheap?

I'm slightly confused and can't find an answer amongst this mass of pages. This guide says to use a 500ohm linear pot from Jaycar. Is this the right one? http://www.jaycar.co.nz/productView.asp?ID=RP3502 I'm confused about the wattage. All the American guides suggest a 3w pot is needed. This...

I put my 3 ring burner straight on to the concrete garage floor and my 50l pot straight on the burner, It's pretty stable. No bricks, no shield. When the boil is done, i lift the pot onto the floor (off the burner) to start cooling, and when it is nearly at temperature, i life the pot onto a...

Wow - didn't want to start a fight here. I had seen diagrams for wiring both ways and actually bookmarked what Yob posted about it not actually mattering. I'm not sure what to take from the discussions but I think I'll leave it as it is. Thanks all for the feedback. The cables are secured...

Thanks Nige - I should have mentioned, the plugs are actually cut off extension cords, so I've done no wiring at the other ends.

So - I've wired up my STC-1000 and plugged it in. Everything works as expected. However, SWMBO still isn't convinced and doesn't want me burning down the garage / electrocuting myself, so I thought I'd start here and post a picture of my work to see if anyone can see anything obviously wrong...

Wow - just when i thought this question had died a sad and silent death Thanks for the info Steve - it is a frost-free fridge, fisher and paykel active smart. i had assumed it wouldn't actually need to run much to keep it at 18, and will only be on for 2 weeks during fermentation once or twice...

So - our fridge just flipped out, beeping and flashing red lights. Turns out it the defrost element has given up. However I can disable the beeping etc and it does seem to be working, the temperature seems a bit jumpy though. New fridge arrives tomorrow morning, so on to my question, is the old...

Reducing batch size??? I cannot comprehend this logic :D

you're right - boil water, let it cool, add yeast, wait, add to fermenter.....maybe time for me to man up.

So what did you end up doing and how did it turn out?? I want to keep things as cheap / basic as possible. I like the idea of just sprinkling 1 pack directly into the wort. I pretty much exclusively brew 23 litres up to a max of 1.060 (ad usually and 1.050) - always figured that 1 pack was...