At long last, a new video!

A frequent question I receive here on my blog, and on other forums, is what microscope I would recommend for home use. This is a difficult question for me - I'm a medical researcher by profession, with microscopy representing the bread and butter of my lab (a bit of eye-candy from my labs work can be found near the beginning of the video). While on the surface this would appear to make me an ideal person to offer advice on microscope selection, alas, its not really true. Because I work with research-grade scopes (which are very pricey) I'm not really experienced in the cheaper, consumer-grade microscopes that are cost-effective for home use.

So in lieu of a video recommending specific models, I've instead put together a video discussing features to look for, along with comparison images to give you an idea of what the various features add to a microscope.

Also, I apologize for the crummy audio; I'm experimenting with screen casting as a way to speed video production (which, in my case, is excruciatingly slow), and haven't quite figured out how to properly balance my mic.

Upgrading a Costco Kegorator

I'm not sure how far Costco has penetrated into the regions of the world where I have blog readers, but my Canadian and US audience at least can appreciate the wonder and the horror that is Costco. Big warehouse store, which sometimes carries the odd gem. I know many brewers bought the Danby Kegorator that Costco carries one or so a year. I bought mine in the summer of 2012, and two years later have made a number of upgrades that I think greatly improve this fridge. These could be applied to any kegorator or keezer, so I hope you find them useful. Click for larger images

This is an obvious one - the kegorator fits two corney kegs (pin locks and ball locks fit). So a two-tap tower is a fairly obvious upgrade. Not shown here is making sure you beverage lines are 3-4 m (10-12') long will help provide smooth pours.

I always struggled with my long beverage lines getting in the way. Coiling them with pull-ties helped a little, but it turns out the real secret to getting your lines out of the way is a couple of feet of 3-conductor wire left over from a reno (yellow, more obvious in then full-sized image). First, wrap a bit of the wire around the coiled beverage lines, and then make a small "hook" at the end of the wire - this will let you hang the lines against the cold-plate, hooking into any of the multiple convenient cut-outs in the cold plate.

A gas manifold greatly aids in controlling CO₂ flow to your kegs.
But wait...why a 3-way manifold?

Adding a 3^rd line to the manifold, along with a MFL connection, allows for a "special uses" line. In my case I have three ends - a ball-lock gas-in for use with a carbonation cap or if a friend brings over a ball-lock keg, a pin-lock gas-in for purging the headspace of a filled keg or temporarily hooking up a 3rd keg, and a liquid-out pin-lock for purging kegs prior to filling and for use during carbonation (to bubble the CO₂ through the beer)

Of course, no kegorator would be complete with some custom tap handles.

10 Dollar, 10 minute Tap Handels

Over the weekend I built a pair of tap handles, based on a derivative of Revvy's design.  His design is quite innovative - a handle &  frame supports a magnetically-attached collector card card protector.  The label is inserted into the protector, thus labelling the brew.  My design (picture to right) is based on Revvy's, but is a little more svelte in design, easier to build, can be made for less than $10 each, and takes about 10 minutes to make (not including drying time).

The design is simple - the centre pin of a pre-turned replacement chair leg is removed and replaced with a threaded insert which allows it to be screwed onto a keg post.  A bit of the handle is cut away to allow a steel mending plate to be attached vertically to the tap - this holds the card protector/label in place via a strip of magnetic tape attached to the back of the card protector.

This has a number of advantages - aside from letting a label do double duty as both a bottle label & keg label, the labels from old batches of beer can be stuck to the keggorator/keezer - ala fridge magnets - allowing them to be reused and providing a bit of visual appeal to the fridge (and working as a reminder of the many magnificent brews that have passed through your kegs).

Very few tools are needed for this project - a saw that can do fine cuts (I used a table jigsaw, but a jewellers saw or razer saw would work equally well), a screwdriver, a pair of pliers, a hand drill, and a paint brush!

Details of the build can be found below the fold.

Simple Time-Saver

Measuring out beer volumes is not always easy - 18.7L of water = 19 measures with our 1L measuring cup. A simple way to deal with this is to mark your bucket - carefully measure out set volumes, let the water stop sloshing around, and pen it in.  It'll save you valuable time in preparing your beer.

Why didn't I Buy This Earlier?

Before departing on my holiday I mail-ordered a large-diameter (1/2") auto-siphon.  What is an auto-siphon you ask?  It is this:

Basically, its a siphon you start by pumping the racking cane (the hard plastic portion of the siphon) inside of a wine-thief like outer tube.  Pumping primes the siphon, then you set back and let it rip.  No sucking beer into the siphon, no pre-filling the siphon with water, no fingers plugging the business end, no accidental contacts while trying to move a filled siphon into the beer and empty keg.  Simply clean, insert into beer/keg, pump a few times, and away it goes.

This thing is a huge time (and pain) saver.  It takes a few seconds longer to sanitize, but starts in a few seconds, and the larger diameter of the siphon drained 20L of Überschuss European Ale into a keg in less than two minutes - far faster than the normal 5-6 minutes usually required to transfer that much beer.

Faster and easier - and probably a lesser chance of infection as well!

Two Problems With Kegging

My recent foray into kegging has revealed two serious problems.  The first of these has to do with my kegorator setup.

The problem, as you can see to the right, is whenever I pour I get a head of foam.  At first I suspected the usual suspects - bad poor technique or beer lines which were too short.  But a closer look revealed something different:

At the beginning of the pour (top), pure foam comes out of the tap.  But after a few seconds, a proper pour ensures (below).  After the first glass, I can pour successive glasses that are perfect pours.


A bit of searching identified my problem - the beer lines in the tower were not being cooled, so the first bit of beer to pass through warmed, releasing its CO₂, causing the foaming.  The flowing beer then cooled the line, resolving the issue.

Problem 1: Beer lines in tower are warm.
Solution: Create a heat-sink.

More below the  fold...

Kegging the moon

The La Lune Bleu is now kegged and carbed - an old recipe combined with my first attempt at kegging makes for an interesting experience.

The kegging was great - essentially consisting of the first step of bottling - you transfer into a clean container.  And then you're done - no mixing sugar, no transferring to bottles, not capping.  Just a few seconds blast of CO₂ to purge the O₂ and away you go.  Not being a patient man, I took a bit of a carbing shortcut - I pressurized to 30PSI, unhooked the gas line, and shook the beer.  This got it ~50% of the way carb'd.  I then hooked up the lines, re-pressurized to serving pressure (14PSI) and let sit until carb'd - about 3 days.  Beer was properly carb'd when tested on day 4.

There is one minor problem, that being the first few seconds of a pour are all foam.  A bit of investigating has revealed that this is due to warming of the beer in the tower portion of my kegorator.  To fix this, I'll be sheathing the beer-line in copper tubing, which'll act as a heat-sink to the main body of the kegorator.  A minor problem, but one which is irritating none-the-less.

As for the beer, its good.  This is the sixth or seventh time I've brewed this beast, and as in the past its a good beer.  The only difference is the brew has a bit of  a yeasty odour/flavour.  I did swap out my normal Wyeast American Ale for Safale US-05, but I doubt that is the issue - far more likely, I kegged to soon.  It should fade with ageing - that is, if I don't drink all the beer first.

Since this beer is kegged, the label is for a tap handle (see image to left).  But since some will need to go into bottles, I've designed bottle labels as well (image below).