Miscellaneous

Here's a few things that don't fit into any other category yet.  I'm going to put together a brief description of how I brew.  Until then I'll use this a kind of like a dumping ground.

The Kegerator

Well, I finally caved in and made myself  kegerator.  It's basically my parents' chest freezer with a wooden collar fitted to alow for drilling without ruining an otherwise good freezer.  The temperature is controlled by an ATC800 temperature controller which is very popular in the UK with brewers.  I use another to maintain fermentation temperature in my conical fermenter.

This kegerator will hold four kegs of beer so I can always have a cold one ready if a keg runs out.

Scales

When I brewed 5 gallon batches I used to buy 3kg bags of malt.  When I wanted to mash I'd use the kitchen scales to measure anything over 3KG.  This was fine for the small quantities I needed but then I moved to 10 gallons.  Brewing 10 gallons at a time means I get through too much malt to buy it in 3kg bags.  I buy it by the 25kg sack now as it's about half the price. 

This leaves me with a problem.  It would take me all day to measure out 8-12 kg of pale malt to make a brew so I took to making a guestimate based on a bowlful being about a kg.    This was fine but after a while I thought it would be a good idea to start measuring more accurately.

I hang a malt sack from the scales and use a scoop to add the malt until I have the required amount. 

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