Jim's Beer Kit

More good quality work! Though of course, in the UK these things are only used for making distilled water :) The false bottom is unfortunate. Whilst BrewUK have published much extended dispatch/delivery estimates, what I've heard on forums lately suggests these can still be wildly optimistic, to put...

Looks nice! The watt density of that element should be low enough to (usually) avoid baking stuff hard on, so cleaning should be doubly easy if you can remove it first. The triclamp seems like a good call too. The back-nuts themselves aren't too bad in that size, but of course triclamps and especial...

I thought I had enough kit as a kit brewer, but I need a Tig welder, just in case. =D> I bought a TIG welder some years back, I'm fairly handy so had visions of some practice then welding up my own conicals and so on. :lol: In fairness I made progress, and could do a pretty decent job on frames, br...

Looks like a very good quality build, there. Nice to see a proper 3-vessel system too; they're still my favourite type to brew on, just wish I had the space for them. I hope it all runs smoothly for you!

Yes, as Guy says - it is okay to restrict the outlet side to slow the flow. With this style of pump the inlet should be as open and free flowing as possible, plus the pump should be well below the liquid level in order to create a positive head. Both of these things help to keep reasonable flow to t...

Hard to say about aquatics centres, silicone hose varies a great deal in quality (as well as thickness etc) so it would depend where they get it. Some I've had has gone on for years with only mild cosmetic tinting... whilst others have gone brown, near opaque and resolutely smelly in a few months (s...

If it were necessary to use a cleaner less suitable for hard water, perhaps a sequestering or chelating agent might be added. FWIW I add EDTA to my home-made PBW-like concoction for this purpose and it seems to help, though I'm not a chemist and there might be better options for all I know. (Keeping...

12psi should be more than sufficient to maintain the seal. Though sometimes a rather higher blast, say 20psi or so, can help the lid to seat better - especially with older or more battered kegs - so that would be my own preference. It should be sufficient for carbonated beer, or beer that has been p...

To echo some of what has already been said: to store the beer then yes, just disconnect the gas but leave the keg pressurised. If you vent it then the carbonation will reduce a bit, but also the lid may fail to stay sealed (and in that case lose most of the carbonation over time). Corny kegs are des...

That does sound like an excellent result, especially under the circumstances quite an achievement! If you are cooling in the kettle, then it has been reasonably well disinfected by the boil so just cover it loosely once it starts to get cooler, to stop flies and wotnot getting in and normally things...

On another note and FWIW (as I realise this may not apply to other situations).. I too have limited space since a change in circumstances meant moving to a small flat, and have managed to ferment in quite small spaces inside. The key thing in my case has been to ensure there can be no leaks - and th...

I'm sure that paraffin or gas/LPG heaters could be used, but it might get more involved if the implementation needs to be safe (especially in a box) - wrt things like fire risk, venting spent gasses and accidental flame-outage - and an air supply would be needed for the thing to work in a small (pos...

Yes insulation is certainly the key for that kind of thing; it sounds like (at just a few five minute stints per day) you're using only about 50watt-hours (or less than 5ah at 12volts) which is remarkably little. If sufficiently well insulated for that to be so, perhaps a much lower power heater mig...

Have you direct experience of that being sufficient, Richard? Several years ago a PV panel of that small size would have been of little use for a winter application like this, but I've no experience of more recent ones; it is genuinely great if they're improving that fast.

Not sure how well you could insulate a FV, but you'd really need to keep the power requirements right down if running by off-grid electricity without a generator. By way of example if you managed to insulate well enough (and it would be an 'if' in mid winter) that an average of 25watts was sufficien...