TheWiggman
Haters' gonna hate
Hi all. I've been doing home brew since I was about 22 after having a go at it with some friends at uni. It was cheap, and that got me hooked. Since then I bought my own Coopers kit and went hell-for-leather for about a year. During my first job I managed to pick up 2 PID temperature controllers for nix and always had dreams that these things could somehow make my life better in the future. More on that later. After that I moved jobs/states and the kit never really got unpacked between moves (I was a bit nomadic working with a mining company). Couple this with marriage and kids and priorities changed.
I built a home theatre subwoofer for a mate while living remotely and he in turn handed over a keg kit that he didn't use any more. A spark lit up in me and I vowed to put them to good use. The gear was old but all it needed was a fridge and a CO2 cylinder. I got anxious.
I've now settled in Orange and have met a few home brewers. I'd only ever done kit stuff (had a few decent recipes from the home brew store in Mayfield, Newcastle) and some new colleagues talked up the BIAB method. The concept of grains was foreign to me so I was keen to know more. I committed and cleaned out the keg gear after a said colleague offered me a fridge, and bought a CO2 Keg King cylinder. One regulator, perished O-rings and bent keg later, and I was back in action. The keg concept certainly got me back into it and my wife could see my enthusiasm. She bought me a home brew book for father's day full of all grain recipes and that was the end of it. It was my duty to pursue this. I thank her still for the book to this day, and she's regretting it more and more when she sees my browser history.
I did a BIAB brew with the bloke who offered me the fridge and I brought the PID controller around. It was perfect for the water but for the grain there were shortcomings I won't go into (suffice to say it involved temperature gradients, placement of the sensor and overheating). While mulling over improvements he showed me the Braumeister and we thought about continuous pumping. I haven't stopped thinking about it since then.
I'm not one to muck around with things when I do them, and this is something I want to do right first time. My plan is to make a system which can take advantage of the PID controllers for temp control and allow me to do multi-stage rests at the press of a button. One day I can envisage a system which is PLC controlled for the most part, but this is not the purpose. The real reason is I want complete customisation of my brewing, the ability to make any recipe I might come across, and minimise room for error. Above all though the journey is half the fun and at the end of the day I should have some quality brews which I can be proud to say are my own. Plus funds are limited thanks to my wife and her 'home living' ideas, and my 3 kids sucking up the rest. Not being able to afford what I want means I want it even more.
I read the terms and conditions and noted point 7. I think I'm in the right place. Stainless does it for me.
I built a home theatre subwoofer for a mate while living remotely and he in turn handed over a keg kit that he didn't use any more. A spark lit up in me and I vowed to put them to good use. The gear was old but all it needed was a fridge and a CO2 cylinder. I got anxious.
I've now settled in Orange and have met a few home brewers. I'd only ever done kit stuff (had a few decent recipes from the home brew store in Mayfield, Newcastle) and some new colleagues talked up the BIAB method. The concept of grains was foreign to me so I was keen to know more. I committed and cleaned out the keg gear after a said colleague offered me a fridge, and bought a CO2 Keg King cylinder. One regulator, perished O-rings and bent keg later, and I was back in action. The keg concept certainly got me back into it and my wife could see my enthusiasm. She bought me a home brew book for father's day full of all grain recipes and that was the end of it. It was my duty to pursue this. I thank her still for the book to this day, and she's regretting it more and more when she sees my browser history.
I did a BIAB brew with the bloke who offered me the fridge and I brought the PID controller around. It was perfect for the water but for the grain there were shortcomings I won't go into (suffice to say it involved temperature gradients, placement of the sensor and overheating). While mulling over improvements he showed me the Braumeister and we thought about continuous pumping. I haven't stopped thinking about it since then.
I'm not one to muck around with things when I do them, and this is something I want to do right first time. My plan is to make a system which can take advantage of the PID controllers for temp control and allow me to do multi-stage rests at the press of a button. One day I can envisage a system which is PLC controlled for the most part, but this is not the purpose. The real reason is I want complete customisation of my brewing, the ability to make any recipe I might come across, and minimise room for error. Above all though the journey is half the fun and at the end of the day I should have some quality brews which I can be proud to say are my own. Plus funds are limited thanks to my wife and her 'home living' ideas, and my 3 kids sucking up the rest. Not being able to afford what I want means I want it even more.
I read the terms and conditions and noted point 7. I think I'm in the right place. Stainless does it for me.
