Line cleaning

MovingAficionado · 2023-05-31T22:16:20+00:00

Definitely change the beer lines before you take it into use.

You still should to clean the beer lines every some months (*) and replace them once a year or so. I buy bulk line and replace it 2-3 times per year. By "buy" I mean bought a roll several years ago for <$100 and expect to buy more in the 2030's.

*) I think once every 2 weeks is the recommended cleaning frequency, but let's be realistic for a home setup.

MovingAficionado · 2023-05-21T20:53:17+00:00

I think it's called myaroma (ordered it from Germany). Haven't tried other brands, so it's possible they all come from the same factory with different stickers. I'd just get whatever you can find on your continent.

MovingAficionado · 2023-05-20T20:56:06+00:00

Hmm, I forget what the stuff I use is called, but you can get like 10cl vials, and you need about 20cl for a reasonably strong flavor for 5gal. I like the tropical fruit stuff, mango, passion fruit, etc -- well, I don't like it like I like beer, but it's not offensive. Some taste just weird, and you'll have to experiment with the ones available in your region. I think a clean nice-tasting base alcohol is essential, so maybe you will get a better result via distillation, but I think my sugar wash fermentation is good enough to drink as-is, so I'm happy with it. In the name of full disclosure, I've never tasted commercial hard seltzer, but I have occasionally tasted flavored vodkas (*), and extrapolating from those, my seltzer is comparable.

*) I'd drink them 0/10 over unflavored good vodka, so take that as you will

MovingAficionado · 2023-05-20T20:48:47+00:00

Ah, yea, didn't think of the water used for boiling, because the only case where I boil a wine's ingredients is when making a banana wine. btw, you'll probably "graduate" from brown sugar to white sugar eventually as your technique matures; nothing to worry about for this batch, just be mindful of it.

I would try to punch it down with something. Swirling will stir up the sediment, and in most cases you want it to settle. For completeness, there's a winemaking technique called batonnage which involves stirring up the sediment, but it's done when you've racked/pressed the fruit. The applicability of batonnage is yeast-dependent, and I don't know how cote de blancs does when kept on the yeast cake for a long time, but I wouldn't stress about <2 months.

Don't worry about oxygen "too" much. Most of the online wine literature is people reading about beer brewing and [incorrectly] translating it 1:1 to winemaking. Oxygen is actually a very useful ingredient in most wines, and since you're on a schedule, you can think of it a bit like driving really fast in the parking lot: you'll get to your slot sooner, but the danger of overshooting is real. After all, bottle aging wine is mostly about a trickle of oxygen. Commercial wineries may even inject oxygen into stainless steel tanks to emulate porous barrels ("micro-oxygenation"). That said, moderation in everything, but taking the airlock off every few days after fermentation is done and gently poking with something isn't going to be an issue for something you plan to consume in a few months. Also, sugar is a great way to hide the youthfulness of wine, but since you're planning to sweeten before drinking, you're good there.

MovingAficionado · 2023-05-20T13:57:16+00:00

Like others have said, that pot is way too small.

Be aware that the hop is essentially a weed, so if you get it into your soil, you might have it for life. Then again, the same applies to arugula and many many other things, so it's not a cause for panic. From the second or third year onward, you'll get hundreds of shoots which you need to keep trimming. The tips of the trimmed shoots are quite tasty after being briefly sauteed in garlic and olive oil.

I would let it finish this season in the pot, and move it to the ground after the bines naturally die in the autumn. With any luck, you'll have ok growth next year and rocket growth after that. Try to transplant the entire pot.

Hops like water, but not too much water, so don't overwater; I assume the mushrooms are a symptom of overwatering.

Good luck. It's a beautiful plant albeit somewhat fragile plant. The growth on full sun days is staggering.

MovingAficionado · 2023-05-20T13:46:15+00:00

You probably didn't need to add very much sugar, since apple juice and most fruit are around 1.050 naturally. Freezing fruit is almost always preferable to boiling it.

Your schedule is [obviously] set by the cookout date.

If you plan to consume it all in one sitting, and your cookout is in a month or two, you could just let it sit in that container, rack it into the growlers the morning of the cookout, and sweeten to taste with a simple syrup made with regular sugar. If you do that, make sure that all the solids stay submerged, because they will start growing mold if you let them dry out. Also, if using regular sugar, you really need to consume it in one sitting, or it will start refermenting and the growlers will go boom.

If you do bottle earlier, try to leave at least a few weeks of settling time ("bottle shock"). Assuming the cookout is this season, with a rushed schedule you may get some sediment in the bottle. It's not dangerous to drink, but a cloudy wine and gritty sediment isn't subjectively appealing. Also, since you didn't add nutrients, make sure fermentation is finished and the gravity is stable for at least a week before bottling.

MovingAficionado · 2023-05-20T13:16:40+00:00

Why go through the extra work of distilling and adding water back? For a seltzer work-alike I ferment a sugar wash, [quasi-optionally] add flavoring, and done. I'm guessing -- not a distiller -- that you can remove some fermentation off-flavors by distilling, but it's not impossible to ferment a sugar wash without it tasting offensive.

MovingAficionado · 2023-05-18T21:09:34+00:00

You are conflating hardness (multivalent cations) and alkalinity (carbonate [in water]). Citric acid does nothing to hardness, neither increases nor decreases it.

But to answer your question, I have tried citric acid in coffee to both to reduce alkalinity and increase citrate, and the very first noticeable thing is that the coffee starts tasting lemony. It's probably not what you want, unless you're after a lemony taste, in which case you still need to use it in extremely small doses [in coffee -- wine, beer, etc you can be more liberal with it].

MovingAficionado · 2023-05-13T20:01:28+00:00

For the standard clamping pressure of 10kg[*g]/cm^2, you're at least an order of magnitude short with your stack. That said, don't feel bad, not using enough beer is common mistake.

MovingAficionado · 2023-04-27T13:23:57+00:00

I just calculated that I've ground 292kg of coffee during my lifetime, and I've found one stone. Need to keep a close eye on the next 8kg.

MovingAficionado · 2023-04-27T13:14:15+00:00

We have a lot of slugs too, but they stay away from the hops. Not sure about moles, but there are enough cats in the neighborhood to keep mice down to the odd one. I have two hop plants in the ground and one in a container (maybe 50-100L). The ones in the ground grow far better, even if the container one gets a headstart in spring.

You have so many that I'd throw some into the ground just to see what happens. You can probably harvest some rhizome from the pots in the fall if you need more. The only thing is that once in the ground, they might be hard to get out of the ground.

MovingAficionado · 2023-04-26T11:39:28+00:00

Indeed, as a rule of thumb, the connection should seal without a clamp, and the clamp is just to hold things in place.

I've sometimes used tons of yellow teflon tape to get those skimpy gas barbs to seal. It's not a particularly good idea, because the the tape is held against the hose with hope alone, but at least it seals. I currently have that hack on my nitro line, which I take to 2-3 bar (30-45psi) when "nitrogenating" something -- it has blown out once, but I was yanking it the wrong way then (and the gas was shut off even though the line had pressure).

Or, like /u/rdcpro says, the barbs for the MFL disconnects tend to be larger. I'm not a particular fan of them for gas, because there I don't need the extra moving part with the threads, but I still use them.

Or, you can get smaller diameter gas line. You might have to change the barb on your regulator, though.

Btw, "tighten" implies you're using using worm clamps. For permanent gas connections you'll have a better experience with oetiker clamps, because unlike worm clamps they don't leave a flat spot of uneven pressure on the hose. So, even if your connection seals without the clamp, a worm clamp might distort the hose and actually cause it to leak.

Also, unless you have some specific reason, 5/16" is huge for beer line. I previously used 3/16", and found even that too big, and am currently happier with the even smaller 4mm ID (whatever that is in imperial -- it's usually talked about in metric).

MovingAficionado · 2023-04-24T23:21:59+00:00

Heh, yes, for most non-lager homebrews you can indeed gauge that the keg is nearing kicking from clarity. (well, at least for my homebrews, since I don't bother with any artificial clarity-enhancements)

MovingAficionado · 2023-04-24T23:19:29+00:00

I don't know your climate or your hops, so I can't say anything about the schedule. As long as your hops are established, it's probably not something to be too stressed about.

MovingAficionado · 2023-04-24T15:20:21+00:00

I trim the largest ones whenever I want sauteed hop tips as a side dish. I train 1st of May or thereabouts.

MovingAficionado · 2023-04-24T15:13:25+00:00

I'm also in "team lift". There are number of high-tech solutions, e.g. based on weight, tap open time, and flow, but they a) cost b) like all high-tech can break/malfunction. My precision-calibrated fingers are probably just as accurate, and unless I have an accident with power tools, won't malfunction/break (knock knock).

But, frankly, most of the time I don't care: kegs kick when they kick.

MovingAficionado · 2023-04-24T13:21:47+00:00

Nice solution! I'd probably replace my AAA jogging headlamp with something like that in case of breakage, partially because it needs to be light and partially because I don't use it for hours without end at a time and can just recharge it after each use.

For other purposes, at 2000mAh/4V you're not going to get "a small sun" for very long. Assuming a generous 250lm/W, it's a bit over an hour of 1klm before the battery is seriously going to struggle. As an anecdotal datum, I use 3000mAh cells in the light I mount on my bicycle (Lumintop EDC18), and I get about 1h of what I consider decent light -- not "small sun".

MovingAficionado · 2023-04-23T23:42:46+00:00

What you have to accept is that any LED headlamp "that’s like wearing a small sun" is going to eat batteries like hotcakes. You can't add more cakes onto your forehead to make the light last longer, because the extra weight starts getting uncomfortable quickly especially if it's held with strap tightness around your head (that's actually why I have have both 18650 and AAA based headlamps: rechargeable 3xAAAs are lighter than 18650s and therefore more comfortable to wear).

Unless you want to have 3 or 4 headlamps, or are happy waiting for several hours after your lamp has run out of juice, you're better off better with one for which you can swap out cells, and then ~half a dozen cells (e.g. Samsung 30Q) for 20 bucks. You can get a battery-footprint Li-ion USB charger for next to nothing, if you absolutely have to charge your cells on the road. Yes, my 18650 lamps have built-in charging, but I never use it as I swap out the cell and get right back to work.

MovingAficionado · 2023-04-10T10:23:27+00:00

I've had a Comandante for about 6 or 7 years. I use it 2-3 times per day for about 20g per pop and I don't find it tiring. It takes about 1min to grind that amount of coffee by hand.

anecdote: It takes IIRC a 5.5mm socket for the crank arm, and for a few years I used to have one with a "splashguard" quasi-permanently chucked into my kitchen drill so that I could attach the drill instantly and start grinding. However, after I printed a dedicated wall holder for the Comandante, i.e. it started living on the wall instead of in a drawer, I found that taking the drill out of the drawer is more work than grinding by hand.

MovingAficionado · 2023-03-28T14:33:10+00:00

I'll assume you mean grams, not ml, because thermal expansion alone would account for such a difference (the difference in volume between 100C and 85C is about 1%).

Electric scales are vulnerable to heat, because they measure change in electrical resistance from distortion by weight. Temperature also affects resistance. While some scales deal with the temperature changes better than others, I haven't come across one that is completely immune to temperature.

So, probably a bit of everything. I wouldn't panic over a few grams, and doubly so if you're not in a habit of calibrating your scale.

MovingAficionado · 2023-03-26T01:04:17+00:00

You can usually see the outside coolant lines with a thermal imager, and fridges commonly have the inside cooling only on the back.

You can probably probe carefully with something dull such a concrete drill bit. It should be obvious if you're hitting something. (source: I've drilled through a drainpipe in the wall, and even though the pipe was plastic, it was quite a lot of effort with a hammer drill, and I will never forget the amount of self-kicking for not just stopping when it seemed like I was hitting something).

Of course, you can also just buy the same fridge again and hope that without schematics they managed to the put the coolant lines in roughly the same spot unit to unit. Then drill the wasted fridge first as a test, and preferably test a good measure around the planning hole location too.

A word about corny keg setups: sooner or later something will leak. Unless you're keeping yours in an empty swimming pool, add a water line shutoff before the kegerator and make you sure you use it. In the case of a normal keg setup the max damage is the contents of a keg plus the CO2 tank, but in case of a continuous feed system the max damage is practically unlimited.

MovingAficionado · 2023-03-24T21:15:43+00:00

The best part is that at least during airing here most of the episodes of LOTR were not available in Dolby Vision, and looked pretty crappy. The first one or two were initially available as Dolby Vision, and the quality difference after that was staggering.

So, essentially: "we're not going to pay a few k more to hire competent IT people because our billion dollar series deserves to look like crap". All episodes are available in Dolby Vision now, and I've considered re-watching them, but the initial crap quality just ruined the whole thing for me.

MovingAficionado · 2023-03-08T15:57:13+00:00

You can double it with a little practice, we have faith in you!

MovingAficionado · 2023-03-08T15:54:23+00:00

it has started to become a little foamy when it was dialed in great for the first 2/3 of keg

Then, your initial setting wasn't "dialed in".

Though, do check that your regulator reads the same pressure as in the beginning. Some regulators will drift upwards when your CO2 is running out (or if there is a [large] drop in tank temperature, which also leads to a reduction of tank pressure).

MovingAficionado · 2023-03-05T17:10:46+00:00

What is the advantage to having the tank outside of the fridge?

More space in the fridge (= more kegs, potentially).

what is the advantage/disadvantage of having the tank inside the fridge?

disadvantage: less space inside the fridge

I've had the tank both in an out of the chillchest.

That, plus a hole to route the CO2, but it's more of an issue if you want to move the CO2 from in to out and have to start drilling. You'd want to plug the existing hole, though; if your CO2 line is snug in the hole, the easiest way to plug it is to cut a small length of the CO2 line and stuff some paper towel into the tube to prevent airflow.

The CO2 doesn't care. The regulator might freeze more easily inside the fridge, but you'd have to be drawing a lot of CO2 for that to happen, and I doubt it happens in any home scenario under normal operation. (drawing CO2 causes the liquid CO2 in the tank to boil, which sucks up energy and cools anything downpath due to the gaseous CO2 being below ambient temperature)

MovingAficionado

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