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Just throwing it out there, but has anyone tried using a vivarium heat mat via an external thermostat? I've been keeping snakes for around 25 years now and it strikes me that these would be ideal for controlling the temperature in a fermentation chamber since they: Don't take up much room...

Yeah, completely understand. I'm based in the Isle of Man and although your rate of £18 is OK there are others who offer free shipping when you get near £80 or £100. I've put just short of £600 your way since middle of December and when you spend that kind of money you appreciate free shipping...

Yeah, @Brew2bottle Homebrew are pretty good. Wish they had a free shipping threshold though, I'm spending a small fortune on postage. Just off to order some more Razorback ...

That's very kind, thanks. I'm going to wait until the rest of my kit arrives, then I'll have a go at putting it all together according to instructions. Once I've gotten as far as I can I'll probably have a clearer idea of what I need to ask, and will be less likely to waste your time. 👍🏻

What sort of pressures do you ferment at? I'm resisting the urge to bombard you with questions, of which I have many, including getting the CO2 hooked up, etc. Got myself a 14 lb bottle of gas and a pressure vessel on order, can't wait to start fiddling.

That's a very good price. Sadly they don't ship to my region.

Oh, nice! Hadn't thought of that. This time of year you'll have no issues with cold-crashing too, right? 😉 I've wanted to try a kegging for a while but the cost of a new Corny has always put me off. (second-hand isn't an option - I'm weird like that) Knowing I can use it for fermenting too...

Makes sense, in fact I've just ordered a small brew bucket for my 10 litre experimental batches, and a new model Fermentasaurus for pressure transfer & ferment. Yeah, OK, so much for eliminating plastic from my process, but the Fermentasaurus is a fraction of the price of a Unitank so it seemed...

That thing looks like the home-brew equivalent of a Chieftain tank @ssparks, nice one! How are you getting on with it?

I heard somewhere that six out of seven dwarves aren't Happy...

I'm using a Brother QL-820NWB to print self-adhesive B&W labels. Not really the same visual impact as a larger, full-colour label, but they're quick & easy to knock up, no toner or glue to worry about, and cost about £8 for a roll of 400. On the plus side you can have the printer auto-increment...

Yes Please! I'm in ...

Good to know, thanks. Ultimately it's the bits of plastic inside the sqirty mechanism I'm most concerned about, since those are the smallest bits and any effect will probably be seen on them first. Got my bottle from a garden centre, so I hope it'll be OK. Which give me an idea ... wonder if...

Naah - you just had a better donor kettle than they did. 😁

Sounds like a real Star San fan! I'm wondering if I can keep it in my plastic mister long-term, or if it'll do something to the plastic over time ...

Loving that idea. ;) My money's on your elements being too powerful to heat something with flavouring, i.e. other than water. Kettles don't really have that problem since you can't burn water and everyone seems to rate them on low boil times, but try to heat something flavoured and you end up...

Don't worry about the bottles having a little Star San inside them from rinsing, I'm told that even foam is OK. I tend to wash mine with very hot water and a minuscule amount of unscented washing up liquid, letting them remain submerged in the wash-bucket for at least a minute or two while I use...

Cheers guys. I'm not too worried about the sediment as such during fermentation (my syphon has a good filter) but I don't want to end up with iffy flavours. Will do better next time. As for growing my own hops, I looked into that too but let's just say that conditions aren't exactly suited...

It occurred to me that I might have made a bit of a schoolboy error during this brew. Instead of ensuring that both fermentation vessels received an equal concentration of wort, should I have strained out the boiled hops and other sediment? In hindsight there's no reason for that junk to be in...

I went ahead with this extract brew yesterday afternoon and thought I'd report back. Everything went pretty well actually, despite me not being able to cool the post-steep wort as quickly as I'd have liked and probably pitching too much yeast - I intended to rehydrate 2-3g in each of two...