Great pics pist and welcome to the forum
,
Nice job on everything
. Here's a few things that might help...
If your three ring burner slows down, clean the holes out with a drill bit. Mine seemed to work fine for the first two or three brews and then lost it. I cleaned the holes out and also bought a variable regulator and since then (6 or 7 years ago) have done no more maintenance. They are great burners.
Check your kettle tap regularly. Do a search of posts done by me that include the phrase 'nostril test'.
Mally likes your hop sock and it does look great in the pic but in real life it is much smaller than it appears. I still have that hop sock pist (the large one) but haven't used it in years. What I do now is use my BIAB bag. I suspend it so that it hangs lazily in the boil and it works a treat. The bag provides a lot more surface area/non-constriction. I'd really have to do a few side by side brews though to see if there is an issue here. There probably isn't but my BIAB bag works better for me
.
Looks like you have silicone hose there - nice! And the only hose to use where
any sort of high temp is involved.
Don't rely on your thermometer probe too much during the mash. Unless you stir the mash, the temperature can read quite wildly different depending on where you put the probe. So, always give a stir and temp check when you can.
Where to put the probe on or in a fermentor is also bit of a juggle
. So many things that factor in here. I have one 'inactive' probe sitting right in the middle of my fermentor using a keg dip tube. This gives me a good idea of what is happening inside the fermentor. My 'active' probe, the one that actually controls the fridge, just sits in the fridge. This stops the fridge from going berserk if that makes sense. You can also move that probe higher or lower depending on what stage of fermentation you are at to control how often/quickly it activates. For example, at the beginning of fermentation it is best to hang it high so as it cools things down faster. After active fermenation, moving it down to mid-fermentor height makes more sense.
Two probes are better than one I reckon
.
Good stuff pist and thanks again for the excellent pics. Great to see you found your way here
,
PP
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