First thing he would need is a real good bottle of Ouzo for these long winded skypes with Pat.

(Lylo, I reckon the length of my posts would beat Pat's skypes )

Great job guys . I've seen the work Kostas has been doing and also had the pleasure of communicating with him several times. Seeing such a thread makes my day .

Pat wrote:It's heading into summer so he generally doesn't brew in summer as fermentation temps are too high. (PP will have some thoughts on this.)

.

We all 'know' that fermenting at high temperatures is not the right thing to do but...

I have only tasted three excellent kit beers (those made from tins of extract) in my life. All the others had extract twang. The only common ground I found amongst these beers was that the yeast supplied with the kit was used and there was no temperature control at all. All these beers were fermented at a temperature that was probably around 30 C.

Yes, I know, shoot me down but seriously, these were great beers.

The funniest thing was that one of them was brewed from a kit that was meant to make an IPA. It was one of the best lagers I have ever tasted .

Obviously I don't like stating such heresy publicly but the above beers are one of the biggest mysteries I'd like to see solved. (In fact, I'd put that "IPA" as the second best lager I have ever tasted.)

So Kostas, one thing I would suggest is to find a yeast that gives a clean brew at high temps. Try it once. If it works, maybe you can brew the whole year instead of half a year?

Keep up the great work,
PP

P.S. If you can find space for a fridge other than your food one, I'll post what I used to do to get the best value out of that fridge.

Kostas,a tub of water,an old cotton shirt over the carboy and hanging into the water,and a fan blowing on it evaporating the water as it wicks up the shirt,can reduce temps considerably.

Lylo wrote:Kostas,a tub of water,an old cotton shirt over the carboy and hanging into the water,and a fan blowing on it evaporating the water as it wicks up the shirt,can reduce temps considerably.

This advice comes from Lylo's wife. Lylo is now using a dating service.

I have brewed Saisons using yeast cultured from a bottle of Saison Dupont. This yeast works best at fermentation temps of 85-90F (30-33C). Might be worth looking into.

My feeling is that our Greek friend needs an urn and a bag. Multiple bags in a 10L pot on the stove does the job but not like a decent size urn and a quality bag would. Even if he cannot resolve his fermentation temp problem he could always just brew a hell of a lot more beer with a proper urn during the "cool" season to get him through the hot weather!

I am still hungover from my brew club meeting last night so I can't think of any clever and witty remarks? I would like all of you to forgive me as I am expected to get my two cents in! I would feel better if you just gave me the money instead of Kostas because Greece is getting a bailout anyway. I am sure his share will be plenty!

Good Day, Now it is Spring in MY part of the world, meaning Daytime temps are 80F/26C, it is time to remember to the Tune....."Ice,Ice,Baby,Ice". Get a large vessel/Tub 2 or 3 times the size of your fermenter.
Place the fermenter in it and fill it with water until the fermenter starts to float, add a thermometer. When it warms to the temps. above your Fermentation Temps., add Ice.
If you got a lot of money, insulate the vessel. Like you did your Kettle.

If you got LOTS of Money, Get a few blue Ice bottles.

-------------------------------------------------------
"I believe in one thing.....I believe, I will have another homebrew!"

LOL Bob!

thughes, I know nothing about urns but is an urn better than a pot with a hand-held immersion element?

Practically, I can see lots of advantages and the disadvantages I can visualise would be easily overcome.

I know Kostas brews on his electric stove. Would putting his pot on the stove plus using a hand-held element be a good idea? (After writing this, I think it was Kostas that actually mentioned this idea to me. Good on him!)

Anyway, why don't electric guys all use hand-held stuff?

Good idea or bad idea?

Good Day PP, the problem for Americans is, We forget to turn off the Hand Held Immesion heaters when we remove them from the kettle, We burn out the element or something valuable.
We even have troubles with exposed electrical elements on a stove or an urn. I won't mention what happens with open Flames!!!

But, don't be concerned America has a lot of people, for replacments!

Lets get Kostas a Greek urn. What's a Greek urn? About $7.00 dollars an hour!

PP,

I have no experience with urns either (we don't have them here in the States), we build our own!

As to the stove top + immersion heater: This is an excellent idea. I use an immersion heater and a 7.5 gallon pot on my electric stove to do 3 gallon batches when I am feeling too lazy to fire up the "big" rig. I think a large pot and an immersion heater or two plus an appropriate bag would provide the best "bang for the buck" for our friend. Perhaps there would be enough $$ left over for some ingredients to brew with?

---Todd

Good Day BobBrews, should we send him a "Henway" or 4 pounds

Does Kostas have some suggestions of what he would like?
Surely there is something he needs that the money could provide. I think Kostas would be the best judge of what the gift provides.

OK
Posted before reading the other post.
Get him a pot then give him the rest to do with whatever( there are a lot of ways to enjoy this ).

deebo wrote:Urns are good in that they already have a tap and element fitted.
You could do the same thing with a big pot, a stick element, a ball valve and weldless bulkhead but you would have to drill a couple of holes in the pot.
Guess it depends what he can get his hands on locally? I would think postage to Greece would use up a lot of the money if you tried to get something big sent over?

There is a French ebay seller that does big pots and a couple of German sites so I don't think delivery will be a big issue apart from eating into his reward. (well deserved by the way )

I've been laughing with the stuff you have written here but seriously guys, I really can't
find the words about what you did. Anything I would say would be too little, really, and
considering the situation that most of the people in the world are now, this is a huge thing!
I've tried everything but I guess I can't get around this, but at least hear me out for a bit.

I've told Pat too about that, this is a LOT of money. It's not only me working on BIABacus,
Stux, PistolPatch, Sig and all the guys from the betas have given much of their time in this!
I find it ungrateful to spend so much money because much of it could be saved at least for future
expenses that BIABacus development might have.

Specifically, an electric urn is too expensive and I hate wasting money. As it was mentioned before
I use an electric stove with a 10lt pot that I'm lucky to borrow from a grandma next door. I used to
mash in a 5lt pot! Yeah I really love brewing...

So I could accept a big pot with an extra heating element(if this is suggested by you) and one proper bag
(or maybe just bag material which costs less) which will be much much less expensive. I could reuse the pot
to make cheese(if I find proper unpasteurized milk) or I could cook a very big traditional Greek bean soup
and invite you over all for summer vacations in Greece!!!
Ok the bean soup is debatable But I don't need any posh and expensive equipment I would hate something like that!

Lylo wrote:Kostas,a tub of water,an old cotton shirt over the carboy and hanging into the water,and a fan blowing on it evaporating the water as it wicks up the shirt,can reduce temps considerably.

First time I did that, the plastic fermentor got like 1 million fly-worms on the edge of the lid and when I opened the lid they started crawling toward the beer... I have a friend that has finished uni and I might get lucky ant get his old fridge for free, I cross my fingers for that! It's very small though, I can't fit a 30lt fermentor so I would need something like a smaller carboy but carboys are a bit expensive...I'll see what I'd do when the time comes!

I really would love to thank you all in person but I guess it will be some time before I can get a proper job here,
and much more time(if ever) before I save some money to travel to another country! I really felt very bad when
I heard about this the first time, I wanted to kill Pat(was he the one?) who suggested something like that!

*If anyone uses facebook I would love at least to add them there, so we can see each other that way
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=809710052" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hey Kostas

Don't give up on the bean soup I love Bean soup

Seriously Kostas don't feel bad. If Pat and the admin team say you deserve it then you do.



Yeasty

Fly worms?
Kostas just think of this as a token of our appreciation as you sweat the detail of the Biabacus while we take some time off our jobs and brew in our big pots with immersion chillers and fermerntation chambers.
Thank you.

Kostas,

I heard about this the first time, I wanted to kill Pat (was he the one?) who suggested something like that!

A lot of us feel the same way some of the time! Join the club!

My 2 cents on Kostas .I know him somehow better than you guys(from our local homebrewforums) and I can guarantie that he is a trustworthy and solid character .What ever you decide for him be sure that it will not be a waste of money .

Don't forget that Greek electrical equipment and Aussie electrical equipment may not be compatible - different plugs, perhaps different voltages, different Amperage circuits in the house and some of our stuff might even be illegal over there. For example as Bob will confirm in the USA they still run their electricity on Imperial in horsepower - maybe the Greeks still run theirs on Drachmas or something.





Point is, rather than decide for him, let him spend the cash as he sees fit - maybe his greatest desire is to import a couple of sacks of Weyermann malts over T'Balkans, whatever. Also I didn't know there was a fund, where can I put in a Euro or two?