re: Homebrew question: Airlock

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Yeah... looking at new brewpots now on AustinHomeBrew... any recommendations?

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Heck I used a canning type pot when I was still on the stove. Real cheap probably from wal-mart.

Homebrewfinds.com was showcasing some decent looking stainless pots that were fairly cheap.

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I think it was something wrong with the burner that caused a hot spot... it basically welded the burner to the bottom of the pot and then burned through.

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Assuming that it was a standard coil burner, what likely happened was the insulative ceramic outside layer developed a crack over time. This gave the electricity a shorter path to follow - usually to the range top or the reflector bowl but sometimes to a conductive pot. I was frying some bacon and shaking the pan a bit when all of a sudden I hear a loud noise and see bright blue light jumping around under the pot. Scared the hell out of me because it happened less than a foot from my hand.

As you noted, you'll need to rewire the burner connection, but also make sure the switch wasn't affected. When it happened to me the switch only worked for half of the settings (i.e. it was off until you hit medium-high, then it'd work all the way to the highest setting).

do any of you use a plastic bucket for your primary fermenter? Seems like it would be easier to deal with than the glass carboy

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Assuming that it was a standard coil burner, what likely happened was the insulative ceramic outside layer developed a crack over time. This gave the electricity a shorter path to follow - usually to the range top or the reflector bowl but sometimes to a conductive pot.

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Yup.

I can take the wires off of the front left burner and move them to the front right (the one that blew out) and test it out. I already moved the terminal block over so right now the knob for the front left burner is controlling the front right.

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do any of you use a plastic bucket for your primary fermenter? Seems like it would be easier to deal with than the glass carboy

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If I was going to start over, I'd probably stick with buckets instead of buying the carboys. You'll hear a lot of talk about how the buckets are easier to scratch (which makes it harder to get really clean), but buckets are perfectly fine for primary fermentation. They're inexpensive, lighter, have a built-in handle, and its easier to store multiple buckets in one place.

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That's exactly what I did until we replaced the range. Right about when I got used to it the new range came in and I swapped it out.

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Yeah, I'm just mulling over fixing this one or upgrading. It should be a relatively easy fix but it's an old range and who knows what will go wrong next.

Homebrewers, what do you think of this deal? I really want to go all-grain sometime soon. LINK

To be honest, I think you could get a cheaper deal finding it yourself, however not by much. So it may be worth the trouble just to buy that one. I just got my hands on a brand new 10 gallon cooler, that I am going to try and make into a HLT and make sparging easier for me. That means that I have to find another level to do a gravity feed. If that doesn't work I would happily pass down my old mash tun cooler, granted without false bottom.

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Do those bazooka hop screens work well?

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No idea. I think I have heard that they work well with whole hops but have a problem with unbagged pellet hops, which would make sense.