Jonty

I know what you mean, there has to be an element of 'cobbled together' to make it seem fun. I decided with this setup that I wanted it permanatly in place and plumbed in so I wasn't lifting buckets of wayter about or stacking HLT's on top of crates etc soI could just walk into the garage, turn the hlt water suply on and fire up the gas and get brewing. Hopefully it'll be the last home brew setup I ever make.

on a slightly smaller scale to Zapp, I gave my new setup a test run tonight, just with some water to see what timmes it takes for heating etc Gas heated hot liqor tank Gravity fed into mash tun Somewhat rustic sparge 'arm'

There's some cracking pictures there Zapp, thanks for posting them. I must say that's a fine bit of ingenuity on the underback design!! I have a couple of questions if I may.. Are the fermenters temp controlled? Do you crash cool the wort after the boil? What sort of time does it take from start to finish on an average brew day? I must say that seeing your own beer sat on the bar in a pub must be amazing!! Cheers

As the title says 3.5 mag Pulsar NV monacle with built in IR illuminator. It;s in very good condition with no marks or scratches. Complete with cordura carrying case and original box. £160 posted to UK mainland Cheers

Jobs a goodun, thanks magwitch

Magwitch was first to the post so sold pending the usual - thanks

Brand new, unused DSA for pulsar challenger GS 1x20 and G2+ 1x21. I bought it in error for a different NV model. I'm not sure I still have the box but it is in the pouch it was supplied in and has all the paperwork/instructions. £20.00 posted

Thanks Gents. I had my suspicions that maybe the reason I didn't need the trigger kit was that the gunsmith who sold it had already fitted it! I appreciate the quick feedback!

I bought a CZ452 .22 a while back. This was in the box with it, the guy who sold it to me said he never fitted it and there aren't any instructions with it. Could anyone tell me if it is a complete kit as I don't need it and would be happy to flog it but obviously I don't want to sell anyone an incomplete kit.

You've got a couple of options on the fuel front, if you have avccess to any good smoking wood (oak/beech/alder/cheery/apple etc) you could burn one piece at a time to give you a steady but lowish heat source with plenty of smoke. Altenatively, if you have wood shavings or chips, light a few charcoal briquettes and add the wood to that. For the chimney, I'd probably restrict it so that you get a good build up of smoke to flavour the meat.

Hot smoking is much better with an indirect heat source or a decent gap between the heat source and the food to stop you just grilling the food in smoke - the smoke won't permeate the meat once the temp of the meat has hit about 60 celcius so anything you can do to slow the meat down from hitting this tem helps get the smoke into the food. You could put something as simple as a baking tray between the coals and the meat or even better would be a metal bowl with some water in it. But there's nothing to say that it wouldn't work, a couple of meat hooks to hang stuff in the chimney and you'd be away.

If your water is really bad mate, you can always buy the 5l 'value' minearal water bottles from any supermarket for less than a quid each - whilst perfecting a new method of brewing, it just takes one more complication out of the process, then once you've mastered that you can get your head round water profiles/treatment etc. Building your own kit is really straightforward, and enjoyable too if you have a go sing out if you've any questions and I reckon there's enough folks on here to set you right.

Hi mate, if you need a big stock pot for BIAB either google or ebay bergland24_france it's a french supplier of catering equipment, including stainless steel stock pots anywhere from 20l to 100l in capacity, typically a 50l one would cost about £40-£45 delivered to the uk they're loads cheaper than any UK based stuff I've seen. Don't be put off by the fact they are in france or on ebay, if you try and order one they email you and organise it all for you.

Thank you, much appreciated!!

I've been looking at some board lenses for use in a DIY NV set up, this is new territory for me so some advice would be appreciated. Looking at the various lens specifications, they have a diaganol fields ranging from around 20 degrees to 50 degrees. I'm not sure exactly what this means or which would be best to be mounted behind a scope. I think I can pretty much guess what the diaganol field is, but I'd rather hear it from someone who actually knew what they were talking about. Thanks

it's cheaper to buy the ammunition in 500's and yout FEO will probably know and accept that mate so you'd be best putting buy 500 and hold maybe a couple hundred more. It would be perfectly acceptable for a 1st grant.

I wouldn't get too jealous Zapp, you've got a set up 10 times bigger and you get to see your beer behind the bar in real pubs Have you started bottled production yet? I'd be interested to hear when it's readily available to the masses.

I'd certainly be interested in seeing that Zapp. Always nice to see how it's done properly!!

so MF, how did everything turm out? I'm especially looking forward to hearing about the banana!!

PM me your address mate and I'll put you a sachet in the post if you like

Hi Leeds Chimp, I'm sure you already know you're never going to avoid sediment in bottle conditined beer as it's part of the conditioning process, but there are a few things you could do to reduce the amount of sediment. How are you bottling it from your fermenter? syphon/tap etc, - I find a tap about 2cm above the bottom of a fermenter allows me to draw off bright beer with verl little crud. How long are you leaving it after conditioning before drinking - the longer you leave it the more compact the sediment will get. If your beer is quite lively, you could maybe reduce the amount of priming sugar, that would reduce the amount of stirrring up caused by the initial 'fizz' of opening the bottle. If you've got a spare fermemter, you can use it as a secondary fermenter and tranfer the beer half way through the fermentation period leaving a lot of the sediment behind, the beer will contimue to ferment ok in the new vessel If you are using kits, maybe try a different yeast to the one supplied with the kit, I like Safale S04, it takes a while to drop out but I find it leaves a good solid sediment, almost to the point where I can pour all but half a cm of beer into the glass. Another thing you can try is to bottle your beer whilst it is a couple of points above it's predicted FG and not bothering priming at all. This is best done if you can transfer it into a secondary fermenter. If for argement's sake the predicted FG is 1007, when it gets to 1009 in the fermenter, bottle it, the lastt couple of points worth of fermentation in the bottle will put some body into it without needing extra sugar. - I'd suggest if you try this one, try it with a couple of bottles first, err on the side of caution and all that. Or, you can let the beer sit in the fermenter for an extra week or two after it's hit it's FG, this lets all the stuff that's been circulating in the currents created by the fermentation Co2 really settle out - the beer won't suffer and as long as you prime and put somewhere warm after bottling, you'll get a good secondary fermentation. Flippant suggestion 1 - Barrel it! Flippant suggestion 2 - get something like a pewter tankard that you can't see the beer through I hope something in there is of use

I've been slowly building a new brewery set up for ages. Boiler is done, mash tun is done and I've now eventually finished my hot liquor tank. It'll be gas heated to save faffing about with electric elements. 100l stainless pot fitted with ball valve tap and sight tube - the hlt will sit at high level (7ft) in my garage and will be plumbed in so the sight tube is so I can fill it from ground level without having to climb up to see how much water it needs Close up of the sight tube fitting - it's a pneumatic push cinnector elbow with a poly carbonate tube On the inside of the tap, there's a dip tube to make sure the tank can drain all the way to the bottom. The tap is 5cm or so above the base of the tank but will drain via a syphon so it will completely empty the tank Hopefully, just a little bit more fettling and I'll be good to go

Sold to Fenboy!

Now Sold S

Now sorted - thanks to all who replied!