Ok, #1 son is concerned about me going up and down the cellar stairs with pails of beer. I’m not but since he’s bound and determined to buy some parts I’m asking fellow brewers what kind of pump and beer lines you would to go from outside to inside and what cleaning products I will need.
I use Bevlex beer line and have been pleased. For my kegs it's always 3/16", but their 1/4" might work better for your application. I've seen other vinyl food grade lines (Amazon) up to 3/8" which might be better, but have no experience with the big tubing. There is food grade silicone tubing available up to 1/2" (maybe bigger?) which is probably the best bet, also the most expensive (but hey, son is forking out the dough, right?). Will let others speak to what is best pump other than to say you'll need something hefty. Whatever you come up with will most likely be suitable for circulating BLC which is a very good beer line cleaner. BTW, carrying 55 lb sacks of grain up my stairs seems to get heavier with each passing year . . . please ask your son for any ideas to lighten my load.
I bought a Blichmann Riptide pump which I really like. It's a few extra bucks compared to others out there but I really like that is stainless steel and easy to clean with the use of a tri clamp on the pump head. I bought camlocks and 1/2in silicone tube from Bargain Fittings for recirculation and then transferring from kettle to fermentation vessel. I use about 20 feet of tubing for the transfer and there is a rise of about 4 feet from the kettle to the fermenter and there are no issues moving the wort. I just use star san on my tubing and it has worked fine.
I have 3,500 words about tubing in the July/August issue of BYO which will hopefully answer any questions you have. It may or may not be paywalled but it will be in the print copy. One bit of advice, buy NSF and buy name brand. There is some awful product labeled NSF coming from Asia that will make your beer taste and smell of plastic. Cheers
When I purchase grain in bulk I transfer it into two airtight food grade plastic containers. This halves the amount of weight for lugging the grains around. Cheers!
As far as I can tell, feature articles are always paywalled, at least initially. Which can be a little bit of a PITA when you want to look at how your own article was printed and your snailmail copy hasn't arrived yet. But, it is a business.
So I'm in Barnes and Noble, shelling out $7.99 or whatever for a print copy, thinking to myself that I am paying money for something I was paid for, only so I can have a copy of that thing that I already have. Not sure how much traffic my little world drives to the website or to print copies, but I would not want to know the truth either. Cheers
You should be getting a contributor's copy mailed to you along with your check. But that normally lags behind the pub date by a good bit.
Bill, Haven't the BYO folks provided you with a copy of your article(s)? I have written two articles for BYO and in both instances they have provided me with copies (including in electronic format - PDF). Cheers!
7 months? I'll wait. In reality, it does not bother me in the slightest. I like to have the print so I can provide autographed copies to my Tik Tok followers. Cheers
I can't speak to any of the other stuff but I've recently started using the cleaner from exchillerator (available here https://www.exchilerator.com/product/wash/ ) and imho it blows PBW out of the water. It's incredibly effective, and works very fast. I bought a pound then after a couple uses just went ahead and bought a 50# pail. I'll never use PBW again
