Fil, Belter & Matt12398's joint long distance brewday.

[Belter]

So after a year of messing around in the garage my brewery is done. The last pieces of the puzzle were put together yesterday. I finished tinkering at midnight after having no end of problems and by all accounts Fil was still at it at 5am!!!!!!!!! Hopefully he can catch up when he wakes up.

For anyone that doesn't know coincidentally, Fil bought his bergland pots around the same time as I did and we ended up finishing building out rigs at the same time so convinced eachother to do the first brewday on the big rigs on the same day.

I'll post my recipe in a min. It's a tried and tested GW's Exmoor Gold clone. To keep things simple I am using dried yeast and haven't tweaked the recipe apart from water treatment. Be interesting to see the results.

Cheers

Belter

[jimp2003]

Good luck with the brewday guys! I look forward to seeing some pics of the new rigs in action.

Cheers!

Jim

[barneey]

Now you can use all that brand new equipment and think to yourself "if only I had ......."

Lots of pictures please including the "I`ve moved the ph meter around to get a 5.4ph" & the "I've moved the thermometer around to get 67 or what ever" I trust the grain shot will be included, (but please spice it up a little - lego figures are good)

My best advice with new equipment is to try and follow some sort of recipe + take detailed notes at ever single stage makes setting up BS2 easier at a later date. Enjoy your days - hope you are brewing indoors as its p155ing down hard here.

[Belter]

Fil? ..... Are you there?

I had a bit of a mare of a brewday. My PID decide it wanted to go to every temperature except the Set Value.

I blocked my Plate Chiller on first attempt at using it. Back flushed it and everything was fine.

The 300kg scales that Clive recommended are awesome. They look really professional and make weighing water a damn sight easier. Cheers for the heads-up on those.

Steam extract worked perfectly.

I've learnt a lot of lessons from this. As you say Clive, I realised I need more equipment. I now want a RIMs. My mash tun loses far too much temp over 90mins with all that dead space. A RIMs should sort that.

I was most impressed with my underback/spendsafe. Made effortless recirculating of the mash tun.

Also whirlpooling is not something I could do on my last setup. I had crystal clear wort running through the hop filter, out the tap and back in the top.

After the brew we bottled 25L of Matt12398's India Porter.

After a late night last night setting up and a long day today I'm knackered. Will post recipe tomorrow hopefully.

... What happened to Fil?

Cheers

Belter

[Supercooper]

Well done Lee. Glad you've got a brew under your belt on the new kit.
I had a mare of a brew yesterday too. Both my solar pumps packed up. Eventually got one going again, but I'm now looking at upgrading, as always.
I like the sound of your under back. Have you got any more details on that?

[Belter]

Yes mate. I'll finish the write up tomorrow but it's on my build thread.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=56933&hilit=+Labour ... e&start=45

[Fil]

It happened this end, i have a thermpot full of citca 70l of extreamly silly gravity beer, read 1060 at 27C the sample is still cooling...

I wasnt brewing a recipe but playing with the kit and seeing what it could handle..

Of my brilliant ideas some went very well, others were less successful

The failure of the day was the perspex FB .. seems it didnt like the kettle of off the boil water i used to preheat the tun.. its a wee bit warped.. pics will follow but flickr is taking its time...

Blinding successes were the hop spider and the flux capacitor, or the pipe chiller, called the flux capacitor by a pal cos its mad looking.. but it works a treat..

My pid decided to behave oddly when i upped to 85C for sparging so i just heated up with my finger on the switch.

but no major spills i didnt tip the tun to minimise d/space as i was on crates as platforms, bu i did tip the boiler to draw every last drop out, tho the last out was dregs and it did clog the solar pump after it had done a sterling job throughout the boil recirulcting back thru the hop bag.

Am knackered, but had a great day at the brewface
Cheers Belter, i needed the kick up the arse to get my hands wet with the new kit..
And now i know a lil more about how it all works the decisions outstanding holding up the brewery set up can now be sorted

now i have one last stashed bottle a runt of a bottle of gingerbeer only 3/4full, i deserve that now.

[Fil]

Flickr finished.. so here we go..

15kg of pale malt doughing in while being underlet




getting the mash on temp was a pita my strike temp of 71.7C according to Mr Pid which was ideal in the old tun needed 4 full kettles to bring it upto temp. by which time i was focused on the 1st carrot of the day...

one of my last few stashed bottles.. i have a wet brewery me
and i ended up with a very loose mash

But this is what i need to find out about the new kit so its all good.

With the mash on i had to build the hop spider that i had mocked up with beerline, as soon as i started to solder it started to rain..



Due to rain i set the boiler up inside my steam extraction system, a big fan and an open door it worked a treat



Batch sparge #1


And the cleaning station is needed to deal with the sticky paddle


Yep i lumped the ber into the kettle 20l at a time.. i poured thru the hopsock as there was a lot of grain and jugging back dint seem to help.. I later discovered my FB had warped quite badly ;(

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the grain bed post batch sparge #1


Finally starting volume in the kettle


82-4L!!

the starting gravity samople cooling down before i kicked it over..


Hops and Yeast


The star of the day THE FLUX CAPACITOR!!

as i have a chiller i can clean, i had better get on with cleaning it.... and setting it up for use.

The boil just comming up and im about to add hops.. im adding a full 100g of challenger



Hops in the spider, and the boil is lifting up the bag bottom, Time to start the recirc...




the power house for moving the beer

Recirc on and the spider bag is filling up..


Time for beer #2


and the hop bag is full now..


time to throttle back on the pump i think



With the boil underway, the chiller cleaned, time to look at sanitising the FV..

My first time with starsan..

ready to sanitise the chiller



Sanitising the chiller by recirculating the flame our boil


The Flux Capacitor has been recirculating the boil for 15 mins, time to turn on the water..


Making use of the residual grain bed heat to stimulate the starter which has been in the fridge for a few days..



the return from the HEX is 23C as soon as the cold water is turned on even with the boil running
so straight into the FV..


the beer airating into the FV


Note the time 9:10.. the FV was full by 9:45

What deadspace


The FV full

the pot seam isnt as bad as it looks , just a trick of the light..

temp checked and starter added


And u dont wanna see pics of the clear up do u

1 HOUR LATER.. done!!

[DeGarre]

"Bottled/kegged 8th November 2011..."

Was there summat wrong with that beer?

[EccentricDyslexic]

Nice one Fil! Sounds like well organised chaos, just like my brewery! Those tiny pumps are sommat else! And the capacitor looks the biz

Steve

[Fil]

SHE LIVES!!!

Cheers Steve, -- one day i may have a set up as smooth running as yours.. one day .. i could watch those hop cages drop all night

DeGarre, nothing wrong with the beer at all, just evidence of my stash a crate policy.. and ive been sitting on the last few as i do need to drink Fil brewed beer while brewing more Its the circle of beer

[Belter]

Beautiful Fil, I'm jealous of your fermentor. I'll have to re-read your thread in a bit to get the details.

[EccentricDyslexic]

Cheers Steve, -- one day i may have a set up as smooth running as yours.. one day .. i could watch those hop cages drop all night

Cheers chap, I must do some updated vids of it actualy brewing beer one day! I always plan to but then find the cam corder isn't charged or some other excuse

Steve

[Matt12398]

I'll have to send Lee the photos but after the mash was on we got a bit complacent with the photo taking.

[Fil]

what were u sampling during the mash then Matt?