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Yes, there will be a small plastic cap that fits over the end of the anode to prevent contact with a stainless fermenter. It also serves to protect the platinum from the stainless: platinum is a bit harder than gold but much softer than steel.

Stainless Stainless version is now a goer. I used a bit of Torlon (polyamide/imide) that I happened to have lying around to form the end piece, future versions I'll probably use PEEK.

BTW 2cranky has just pointed out that this won't fit a wide mouth drum type fermenter without it being modified. Easiest mod I can see is to cut a 50mm hole in the fermenter lid and fit a silicone wine bung. I'm going to try getting hold of one of those lids and see what I can come up with.

Nice idea but I'm avoiding the use of low temperature materials so I'd probably fill it with two part silicone. The other difficulty is the electrical connection to the anode. No conductive material that is at anode potential can be exposed to the working fluid other than the platinum surface...

Actually, thinking about it, I could make the main stem stainless, sleeve the inner conductor and cast silicone seals into the ends. If you want to try this configuration I have the materials on hand.

It's not that bad. The glass is lab grade borosilicate tube 1.5mm wall thickness, plus it is bonded to the stainless central conductor with high grade epoxy. Don't go playing sword fights with it, otherwise you'll be OK.

It has to be an insulator, which stainless isn't. I would also strongly advise against leaving the device in place. You couldn't weld it in place anyway as the two electrodes need to be isolated. I tried a tougher plastic tube but the thermal expansion makes heat sterilisation problematic. In...

The easiest and cheapest way of adding a timer is to use a mains timer; this one is $5.50. I could easily add a timer to the controller but then I'd need an interface (HMI) so the user could control it. That blows the cost out completely. I also looked at controlling it via phone app but that...

At 18 oC an extra 10.25 g/l sugar (equivalent to your stated gravity difference) will result in about 260 kPa pressure, which is about 38 PSI. That assumes you reached equilibrium when depressured for dry hopping, by no means assured.

That's alright, it now looks like I won't be able to hit that price point anyway. Making the thing foolproof has been surprisingly expensive.

Take it or leave it, your choice. I developed this as a side issue from a commercial application in wine. I thought it was worth doing at this scale, in my opinion the advantages (ease, cleanliness, accuracy, safety, no consumables) outweigh the single disadvantage (time), especially as it's...

You'll have to wait for the beta tester reports for independent results. From what I've seen there is no difference in outcome in terms of yeast health for a given actual O2 addition rate between the electronic method and the gas addition method. The differences appears to lie in accuracy of...

You appear to be confusing HDPE and PEX: the former is high density polythene (linear), the latter is crosslinked polythene. HDPE isn't used for hot water because it is too weak at elevated temperatures.

BTW if you want to eliminate oxygen from stored hops, oxygen absorber sachets work very well. I did a trial of this when I was doing some advisory* work at a commercial brewery, IIRC we used around half a litre of O2 absorber capacity per kg of hops in the bag. After a month or so of storage...

Why bother with antifreeze? Just use metho, it's vastly cheaper and just as effective. Since you don't need very low brine temperatures you can use ~20% metho in water.

Yes, but not for a long time. I am currently playing with techniques to make this easier in small scale. Propagation is best done in Mann Rogosa Sharp or tomato juice broth but I am playing with grape juice as a substitute. Yes, surprisingly easy these days using oxygen absorbers. Best source...

I thought some detail on how this is used might be helpful. First, slide the cathode (upper electrode) along the glass tube so that it is about half in the wort when the anode (bottom electrode) is at the bottom of the fermenter. Sizing Next, sanitise all the parts that will be in the...

Further to Mark's post above, people often confuse bitterness and astringency. Make yourself a strong cup of one of the awful English style teas like Lipton's, letting it boil for a few minutes, allow it to cool a bit then taste it without adding milk or sugar. That's astringency. Do the same...

There are two conflicting sets of data on hop utilisation vs gravity, one from Tinseth (1.65 x 0.000125^(SG-1).) and one from Kappler which shows a bounded linear relationship from 90% at 10oP to 52% at 18oP. The strange form of the Tinseth curve appears to be because it combines with another...

I don't think Australia will ever need to use recycled water for domestic supply. The gobsmackingly obvious answer to our water problems is wave powered desalination: Almost all the power required for desal is running the pumps Wave power relies on hydraulic conversion (pumping), when used for...