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Oh, my bad, I didn't realize you were not in the US; in the US there's a lot of catering/foodservice grade pots that aren't ideal (for any kind of cooking, really  ) and it's hard to sort the wheat and chaff. From what I was looking at this weekend, the better homebrew shops here carry purpose-chosen examples of the type of stock pot you're talking about. I didn't mean to say you needed to go right for the pro-brewer stuff, sorry if that's what it came off as.And yeah, echoing that you'd probably be well-served by a 7-gallon pot for 5-gallon boils. If you're really worried about scorching, you could put a 7-gallon pot into a 10-gallon pot with a couple of 20mm nuts as spacers on the bottom between them, making a double boiler. I'd wager you could get away with using some dirt-effing-cheap pots if you did this, plus the outer pot would catch any boilover.
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Mar 5, 2012 16:40
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Splizwarf posted:Oh, my bad, I didn't realize you were not in the US; in the US there's a lot of catering/foodservice grade pots that aren't ideal (for any kind of cooking, really Kegs. Converting kegs into boil kettles, mash tun and HLT has been the most productive conversion I have done in homebrewing yet. They're cheap, you can get them welded and plumbed any way you'd like. They're perfect.
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Mar 5, 2012 18:43
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I created a yeast starter using some of the trub from my primary, which went for two weeks. I'm concerned about making enough yeast for even one batch, so here's my process: 1) Collect trub goo piped directly into 12 oz bottle, top off with sterilized water and swish around let settle for an hour in the fridge. Resulted in about 2-3 oz of trub after settling. 2) Create yeast foods by boiling 2 oz DME in 400ml water in 2L flask for twenty minutes at 185*F. I doubled this to create a total of 800 ML. Sterilize flask opening. 3) Cool yeast food, dump the water from the yeast bottle into flask minimizing the amount of trub. Top with sterilized tin foil. 4) Place flask on stirplate, let it go to town. It's been 36 hours now and at about 12 hours there was yeast beginning to collect along the bottom. I turned the stirring action up and it all went into suspension again and hasn't formed another deposit. It's been foaming but hasn't gone past the 1.6L mark. Is there enough yeasties? Is two weeks in the primary too long to harvest yeast?
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Mar 5, 2012 19:13
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For anyone who's bought/made your own kegerator, is there a particular minifridge model you'd recommend? I've been looking at the plans at KegKits because that's pretty close to what I'd want in terms of size (something that can hold two Corny kegs). If anyone has a better site or recommendation I'd be interested to hear it. Was watching Craigslist, but I'm too lazy to wait for someone to actually reply as well as have something good so I'll probably end up just buying something new.
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Mar 5, 2012 19:33
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LeeMajors posted:Kegs. Converting kegs into boil kettles, mash tun and HLT has been the most productive conversion I have done in homebrewing yet. For those interested, I just did both: *Keg fully converted to keggle with false bottom found on Craigslist: $150 *Parts and conversion (total $195): Keg shell: $55 (deposit my friend paid, if you do this only use large brewery shells, not craft - think Bud, Miller, Coors, etc.) conversion kit including false bottom and spigot: $75 labor at brewshop: $65 (included cutting top and converting to lid plus welding of piece for spigot) The Craigslist find was a real deal, keep an eye out in your location. We just got our converted one back on Friday, they did a great job and added a piece of metal to the top (piece that was cut and removed) making a lid. It's going to be sweet having two of these suckers now, we think if we time it right we can brew two 10 gallon batches at the same time. Just need to get a bigger kettle for sparge water. I used to hang in this thread a lot and fell away for some reason but I've been lurking again. My wife and I still brew at least 10-15 batches a year and I'll try to participate more if I can answer any questions.
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Mar 5, 2012 19:39
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Cael posted:For anyone who's bought/made your own kegerator, is there a particular minifridge model you'd recommend? I've been looking at the plans at KegKits because that's pretty close to what I'd want in terms of size (something that can hold two Corny kegs). If anyone has a better site or recommendation I'd be interested to hear it. I bought this one and it works pretty great. However, I bought it for ~$125, I'm not sure why it's gone up in price so much. Also, I put the taps in the front out of laziness, so I can't speak to how easy it would be to put in a tower on the top. With that model you'll probably have to carve away some of the door to get 2 kegs in, but that's about 5 minutes work with a $15 saw. I can't remember if I did that to fit in kegs or to fit in a fermenter, though. PoopShipDestroyer fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Mar 5, 2012 |
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Mar 5, 2012 19:46
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Trane posted:Keg shell: $55 (deposit my friend paid, if you do this only use large brewery shells, not craft - think Bud, Miller, Coors, etc.) This is still a pretty lovely thing to do, no matter what brewery.
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Mar 5, 2012 19:53
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Prefect Six posted:This is still a pretty lovely thing to do, no matter what brewery.  What do you think LeeMajors meant when he said "cheap"?Fine way to welcome me back to the thread. I mentioned this only because it's the sole guideline for many homebrew shops that do keg conversions in town, not to start a discussion on morality.
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Mar 5, 2012 20:02
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Prefect Six posted:This is still a pretty lovely thing to do, no matter what brewery. Why is that lovely? If $55 wasn't a reasonable price for a used keg, the deposit would be higher; since you get it back when you bring back the keg, they could make it $100 or $300 or whatever if they needed to without causing you any greater loss in the end. For example, tool deposits are usually the retail price of the tool. Not trying to pick a fight; genuinely confused. I thought deposits were always an assumption of loss. Splizwarf fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Mar 5, 2012 |
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Mar 5, 2012 20:17
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If that were true you'd be able to go out and buy a full size keg for 55 bucks. Good luck with that.
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Mar 5, 2012 20:34
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Trane posted:
I found mine on craigslist for 25$ and then 40$. I don't think it's a big deal though--that's why they charge the deposit.
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Mar 5, 2012 20:42
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Scrapyards for kegs and cornies, anyone?
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Mar 5, 2012 20:52
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Splizwarf posted:Why is that lovely? If $55 wasn't a reasonable price for a used keg, the deposit would be higher; since you get it back when you bring back the keg, they could make it $100 or $300 or whatever if they needed to without causing you any greater loss in the end. For example, tool deposits are usually the retail price of the tool. Because the scrapyard cost of a 1/2 barrel keg is usually higher than the deposit charged to cover it. It's simply considered traditional to charge an amount that's really low to encourage people to get them. Some breweries around here DO charge reasonable deposit price; i.e. it's 100+ bucks deposit on a keg from Green Flash/Ballast Point. There's actually been a problem around here with people getting kegs of beer from the store, and then scrapping them to partially cover the cost of the beer. The vast majority of kegs you see around and in use as kettles, etc. are stolen. Angry Grimace fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Mar 5, 2012 |
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Mar 5, 2012 21:04
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RiggenBlaque posted:I bought this one and it works pretty great. However, I bought it for ~$125, I'm not sure why it's gone up in price so much. Also, I put the taps in the front out of laziness, so I can't speak to how easy it would be to put in a tower on the top. I'm wondering if that would also work as a nice fermentation chamber if you could find a temperature override? I'm looking to get a nice controllable fermentation space. I don't have a huge space though
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Mar 5, 2012 21:12
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Splizwarf posted:Why is that lovely? If $55 wasn't a reasonable price for a used keg, the deposit would be higher; since you get it back when you bring back the keg, they could make it $100 or $300 or whatever if they needed to without causing you any greater loss in the end. For example, tool deposits are usually the retail price of the tool. Because it's basically stealing. Putting a deposit down for a keg knowing you're just going to keep it is stealing. Doing this not only gives home brewers a bad name but it increases costs for breweries which you, the consumer, will get to see down the road. If you buy it off Craigslist or whatever, ok, but just be aware of what you are doing and try to be somewhat ethical in your actions. If people keep doing this we'll just wind up with $200 deposits on kegs which I don't think anyone wants.
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Mar 5, 2012 21:13
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Splizwarf posted:Not trying to pick a fight; genuinely confused. I thought deposits were always an assumption of loss. The deposit is just enough to make sure most people bring the kegs back, but it's nowhere near the actual cost of the keg, because if they had $100 deposits (which is approximately fair price for a keg shell), no one would buy $80 kegged beer. I think it's safe to assume that the keg deposits will be set by the distributors at such a level that they maximize profit by charging little enough to maximize sales and enough that they minimize loss. As scrap prices have risen and homebrewing becomes more popular, deposits have doubled or tripled, so it's clear that this kind of thing is noticed and affects people. Honestly, I think the returnable keg is on the way out anyway, being replaced with one-way kegs, because the current model just isn't supportable. The same thing happened with Cornies (perhaps for different reasons) - they got too expensive for the soda distributors to run, so bag-in-a-box became the standard. I have three converted kegs for kettles myself, and it bothers me a little bit from time to time. I don't think it's possible to call it not-stealing unless the kegs are explicitly released by the brewery that owns them. If you want conscience-free kegs for conversion, Sabco is the place to go.
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Mar 5, 2012 21:14
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Trane posted:
That's a pretty poor attitude. Maybe poo poo places like HBT will encourage this sort of thing, but new or not, I don't think you'll find anyone here telling you what you are doing isn't stealing and isn't a crappy thing to do, both ethically and for the hobby. If that makes you upset then I don't know what to tell you.
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Mar 5, 2012 21:19
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Jo3sh posted:The deposit is just enough to make sure most people bring the kegs back, but it's nowhere near the actual cost of the keg, because if they had $100 deposits (which is approximately fair price for a keg shell), no one would buy $80 kegged beer.
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Mar 5, 2012 21:21
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Jo3sh posted:Honestly, I think the returnable keg is on the way out anyway, being replaced with one-way kegs, because the current model just isn't supportable. The same thing happened with Cornies (perhaps for different reasons) - they got too expensive for the soda distributors to run, so bag-in-a-box became the standard. What would it be then? Have you seen these one way kegs
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Mar 5, 2012 21:21
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I'm just asking people to be non-judgmental on the Internet. I don't see why that will never happen, ever
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Mar 5, 2012 21:22
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Jo3sh posted:The deposit is just enough to make sure most people bring the kegs back, but it's nowhere near the actual cost of the keg, because if they had $100 deposits (which is approximately fair price for a keg shell), no one would buy $80 kegged beer. This is a weird disconnect to me; if I can expect to get my $100 back when I bring back the keg, why wouldn't I pay $180 for an $80 keg? Do people not have faith that the brewery will give the deposit back? What you're describing seems out of line with the other deposit-based rental systems I can think of, except maybe propane tanks for grilling? But even then you have to buy the first tank outright. Usually, the whole point of a deposit is to cover the loss if the item doesn't come back or comes back damaged. I guess the other question is "If $100 is a reasonable price for a new keg, what's the depreciation on one that's been a daily rental beater for a couple years?", like the difference between a new car and an off-lease fleet car with 2 years and 200,000 miles on it. I've certainly been served from some that looked like they'd lost a fight in the street, are the beat up ones worth $55? Less, more? Do any breweries simply sell them used, like at the end of X years or X hundreds of rentals? Like I said, not trying to fight about it, still honestly confused coming from a world of full-price deposits for equipment rentals. It sounds like keg deposits started out as a token thing back in the day, rather than a calculated part of the business model? Or maybe they were part of the business model but people were generally nicer and more reliable in Olden Times, so the loss figure being lower meant the much lower deposit still covered any costs?
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Mar 5, 2012 22:34
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Can I ask why we're supposed to hate HBT? I have yet to see anything particularly wrong with it from browsing it a few times.
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Mar 5, 2012 23:21
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Darth Goku Jr posted:What would it be then? Have you seen these one way kegs Yes, I have seen one, and I've even seen one opened up. It's a blue or gray keg-shaped plastic barrel with a Sanke fitting on top (I am guessing they can be had in other formats also). Looks like a plastic keg. When you open it up and look inside the barrel, it has a big PET vessel inside it, like a large version of a Party Ball or the new Home Draft thing that Miller is doing. EDIT: Here's a video that shows one being disassembled for recycling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXJENG3gEN4 Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Mar 6, 2012 |
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Mar 5, 2012 23:23
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On the topic of paying the deposit and keeping the keg: Yes, it is a pretty lovely thing to do, but what about places that won't accept the keg without a receipt? Some states/places do not allow people to get the refund back if they lose the receipt. Also scrap yards are not supposed to accept kegs in many places. So what does a person who loses that little slip of paper supposed to do with a keg that they cannot return? It can be kind of a catch 22 at times. Also, HBT will ream anyone out who brings up the keg deposit thing. Its not something you can really discuss without getting flamed.
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Mar 5, 2012 23:27
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Splizwarf posted:This is a weird disconnect to me; if I can expect to get my $100 back when I bring back the keg, why wouldn't I pay $180 for an $80 keg? Do people not have faith that the brewery will give the deposit back? If I were buying beer for a megabrau kegger, I might not have the extra hundred bucks ready to commit, even temporarily. The craft breweries that are able to take $100 deposits for kegs are, as pointed out, much more likely to be selling beer to people who can tolerate the tying up of a C-note for a few days or weeks. Splizwarf posted:Do any breweries simply sell them used, like at the end of X years or X hundreds of rentals? Yes. I know New Belgium is very generous with the homebrewing club (clubs?) in the area, giving away or selling cheaply kegs that are so damaged as to not be worth refilling. Also, lots of breweries sell their beaters to Sabco for reconditioning, or sell them directly to smaller operations that might be looking for a cheap way to get kegs and don't have a high-volume kegging line and are therefore more tolerant of fittings slightly askew, bent skirts, etc. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Mar 6, 2012 |
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Mar 5, 2012 23:29
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HBT isn't IMHO a bad place. It gets a bad rap here because its mostly filled with not so intelligent people who are generally unhappy with their lives. It does however have a minority of some very intelligent and helpful people. If you ignore everything not directly beer related it can be a really informative and helpful place though.
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Mar 5, 2012 23:30
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Prefect Six posted:That's a pretty poor attitude. Maybe poo poo places like HBT will encourage this sort of thing, but new or not, I don't think you'll find anyone here telling you what you are doing isn't stealing and isn't a crappy thing to do, both ethically and for the hobby. If that makes you upset then I don't know what to tell you. Already posters have disagreed with you, so I'm not the only one. You don't like my attitude, yet you jump on me for stealing without any other content in your post. I don't support HBT or read their forums, this is what I've been told from multiple local homebrew stores in Seattle. I didn't get a keg for the sole purpose of keeping the shell, this came from my friend who had it for almost a year and it was obvious he wasn't going to return it. Content: We've got a monster double IPA (1.095OG) in primary that we'll be racking this week. It's been so fun to watch this past week since we used twice the amount we normally add due to the gravity. We almost had a blowoff in one 8 gallon bucket with 5 gallons of beer! Definitely the best fermentation we've had in a big beer and (obviously) yeast was the key.
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Mar 5, 2012 23:34
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digitalhifi posted:On the topic of paying the deposit and keeping the keg: Good for HBT. I think the case we're talking about is specifically putting a deposit down with the absolute intent of not returning it. My wife's brother-in-law had a renter who skipped out on him and had left behind an empty keg. I told him he could try to return it to the brewery or if he wanted to try to recoup some of his loses (the renter tore up the back yard among other things) he could scrap it. Not the most ethical thing to do, but give the situation I can understand him wanting to get some money back (of course now he's thinking about keeping it and starting to brew  )Basically there's always gray areas. If you can't return it like in the case above or your case, then yeah I think it's better to use it for a hobby than scrap it, but getting one through a deposit not in good faith is lovely. As is suggesting other people do it.
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Mar 5, 2012 23:36
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Angry Grimace posted:Can I ask why we're supposed to hate HBT? I have yet to see anything particularly wrong with it from browsing it a few times. You don't have to hate them, it's not like they don't have useful information over there. They just also have (in my opinion) a lot of cliquey bullshit and they seem more interested in telling in-jokes and refusing to answer questions. One of their favorite tricks (and they are by no means unique in this) is poking fun at newbies who dare to ask questions, telling them to read the FAQ and use the search. Way to be helpful and encourage people. I just find the signal:noise ratio to be so low that it made reading a chore rather than a pleasure. As a counterexample, the current discussion about kegs and whether it's OK to use them is about as heated as this thread has gotten since Ajaarg got more or less perma-probated.
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Mar 5, 2012 23:44
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Trane posted:Already posters have disagreed with you, so I'm not the only one. You don't like my attitude, yet you jump on me for stealing without any other content in your post. I don't support HBT or read their forums, this is what I've been told from multiple local homebrew stores in Seattle. I didn't get a keg for the sole purpose of keeping the shell, this came from my friend who had it for almost a year and it was obvious he wasn't going to return it. Uh no one has disagreed with me and just because I called you out for suggesting to someone that they "steal from big breweries, not craft breweries!" doesn't mean my post didn't have any content. I also don't see how your local shops suggesting you steal makes it any more ok. If that's how you came by it, then ok. I don't care how you got your shell. I care that you suggest to another person and others who may read this thread that it's totally cool to rip off breweries by entering into an agreement not in good faith, but only if it's one of the big boys. I'm saying it's not and you're getting red in the face about it. E: oh Ajaarg 
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Mar 5, 2012 23:46
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Splizwarf posted:Like I said, not trying to fight about it, still honestly confused coming from a world of full-price deposits for equipment rentals. It sounds like keg deposits started out as a token thing back in the day, rather than a calculated part of the business model? Or maybe they were part of the business model but people were generally nicer and more reliable in Olden Times, so the loss figure being lower meant the much lower deposit still covered any costs? Any store selling kegs in or near a college town is doing a huge chunk of their business on cheapass beers sold to frats and other college parties, and most of that clientele aren't going to put up a $100-150 deposit on a $50-60 keg of beer AND are on the other hand nearly guaranteed to bring the keg back to get their fifty bucks back. So that's probably one factor on the really low deposit amounts.
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Mar 6, 2012 00:04
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Prefect Six posted:Uh no one has disagreed with me and just because I called you out for suggesting to someone that they "steal from big breweries, not craft breweries!" doesn't mean my post didn't have any content. Great, glad you feel better about yourself after getting on that soapbox. Again, I've been away from the thread for a long time, offer up some feedback regarding multiple ways someone can get a keggle and rather than start a discussion about the pros and cons of getting a keg shell your first response is "You're a thief." Pardon me for being a little bothered by that. Regardless, why do many Homebrew stores offer this type of service then? Why are there conversion kits readily available? If anything the homebrew community supports this even if they "say" they don't. R2Brew fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Mar 6, 2012 |
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Mar 6, 2012 00:15
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We're not here to police each others' morals. Each man has to live with his own sins, IMO. I tend to mildly discourage the idea of converted kettles, even though I own (have in my possession - whether or not I actually own them is unclear to me) three myself. I think it is a potentially bad idea just because of the bad blood it stirs up (see above) even if the kegs were acquired legitimately. And, when acquired legitimately, they are expensive enough that you might as well just buy a stockpot, really.
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Mar 6, 2012 00:19
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Jo3sh posted:You don't have to hate them, it's not like they don't have useful information over there. They just also have (in my opinion) a lot of cliquey bullshit and they seem more interested in telling in-jokes and refusing to answer questions. One of their favorite tricks (and they are by no means unique in this) is poking fun at newbies who dare to ask questions, telling them to read the FAQ and use the search. Way to be helpful and encourage people. I still kind of miss him.
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Mar 6, 2012 00:20
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Trane posted:Great, glad you feel better about yourself after getting on that soapbox. Again, I've been away from the thread for a long time, offer up some feedback regarding multiple ways someone can get a keggle and rather than start a discussion about the pros and cons of getting a keg shell your first response is "You're a thief." Pardon me for being a little bothered by that. Welcome back goon buddy! 
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Mar 6, 2012 00:22
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Trane posted:Great, glad you feel better about yourself after getting on that soapbox. Again, I've been away from the thread for a long time, offer up some feedback regarding multiple ways someone can get a keggle and rather than start a discussion about the pros and cons of getting a keg shell your first response is "You're a thief." Pardon me for being a little bothered by that. It's still both larceny and fraud and telling someone else to commit fraud is a crime as well. I think you're also mistating his post: saying "this is a lovely thing to do" doesn't equate to "you're a thief," really. You're essentially arguing that there's tacit support, but there really isn't. It's perfectly possible to legitimately buy used kegs.
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Mar 6, 2012 00:23
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zedprime posted:Coincidentally, one of Ajaargs reoccurring arguments was about not just bringing up the idea of taking a keg from a distributor, but outright encouraging it over other avenues as a form of economic activism against evil big beer distributors and brewers. I don't recall that particular rant, but they all blurred together and I had him on ignore for a while. Personally, my preferred economic action against big brewers and distributors is to brew and drink my own, and to drink beer from craft brewers when I do drink commercial beer. I recognize that it's not solely my victory, but there does seem to be some traction.
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Mar 6, 2012 00:27
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Prefect Six posted:Welcome back goon buddy! Have a homebrew and chill out.
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Mar 6, 2012 00:28
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Wow, I started a shitstorm on here espousing the love of keggles. My bad. I don't encourage buying a keg just to keep it--but there are plenty of good ways to get them (off CL, etc.). Also, at least here in SC, there was a new tagging system put in place that requires you keep this paper tag on the keg. If it is lost or falls off, you lose your deposit and have to keep the shell (I think our deposit is 50 or 55). Many of the craigslist kegs, here at least, are from people that simply lost their tag--or had a shell before they had tags, and thus cannot exchange their shells. I take mine off, put it in a safe spot, and zip-tie it back on before returning it, but many people aren't quite as diligent. You'd think they wouldn't be so weird about it if they were losing money on the deposits, but here we are.
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Mar 6, 2012 00:42
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LeeMajors posted:Wow, I started a shitstorm on here espousing the love of keggles. My bad. It's cool, I didn't realize there was such a taboo on this as well. My friends that got us into brewing over 10 years ago have always had them, and so to me it was almost a rite of passage to get our own. Maybe there is a 'don't ask don't tell' mentality that I wasn't aware of. I don't consider myself a model citizen, but I also don't advocate stealing personal property - Apologies to all if I came across this way. I love talking about making beer, it's a rewarding and relaxing hobby (unless you pull your back out moving grain, but I digress). Talking about beer is usually done best when you're having a pint or two, which I neglected to remember before responding. Let's get back to discussing beer instead of pointing fingers (myself included), as there's something everybody can learn here.
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Mar 6, 2012 01:31
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