yeah it's a pretty cool trick eh? apparently years and years ago before the advent of widget cans, guinness used to sell cans of lightly carbonated stout which came with a small disposable syringe attached to the can! apart from the cost of the syringes, and possible packing issues, i wonder if it lost favour because people didn't like looking like junkies when they drank their beer......

Hi Mark
Umm, well, yes, I have, but never very successfully. It's a beer that seems to have been changing too - a few years ago the inside goss was something like this for 20L:
3.5kg Pale malt
150g medium crystal
250g flaked maize
a bit of brewer's caramel
wyeast 1968
hops: target, challenger and northdown (not sure in what order, but to 31IBU).

I've read recently that they have stopped used the flaked maize and caramel and it might well be more like just pale malt plus 250g crystal....i believe the hops are much the same - helps to give that vague marmalade taste that their beers (especially ESB) have. the yeast is quite important too - i've never actually used 1968 but others have and i know they like it.

you in palmie over the xmas break?

It sounds like you may need to recirculate a bit more. The only time my one clogged up was with my Roggenbier, which stuck 4 times during the sparge. In the end, I gave up on clarity for that one... then during the boil this happened. It's all the small proteinacious particulates sticking onto the hot hot hot element.

I'd recomend at least 12 Litres of slow recirculation - the runoff needs to have no crap floating in it. No crap, means nothing can stick to the element. After the boil, a solid scrub down with steelo to bring the shiny back.

I can assure you that it should come back to normal. I have done at least a dozen boils with that Coffee Urn now - and only the one problem. 3 of the boils have been very big beers (1.080+): I thought I would run into problems with gravities like that... but never did.

Hope that helps bro.