200L Brewery Test Brews

[haz66]

I`ve now just copmleted my 3rd test brew on the new set up.
Test brew 1 was a disaster the big barrels i used to ferment the 100ltrs of beer imparted flavours from the plastic, all down the drain.
Test brew 2 was cut down to a 60ltr brew as i bought 3 new 60ltr fermenters that shouldn`t damage the beer,
this was brewed last weekend and all seems to be going well so far with it, i brewed a modified version of my Coniston Bluebird Clone.

9.6Kg Mo Pale Malt
960g Crystal Malt
60g Pilgrim @ 60mins AA 11.2%
24g Challenger @ 30mins AA 7.9%
30g challenger @ 20mins AA 7.9%
20g Challenger @ 10mins AA 7.9%
60g Challenger @ 0mins Steeped for 1 hr

This will be slighly high on the IBU`s as for some reason i wrote the value of the Pilgrim down wrong.

Test brew 3 today was as above but i only used 50g Pilrim @ 60mins to cut the bittering units down a bit.

Today was the best out of the 3 in terms of getting used to the new setup and everthing running smoothly,
as last week i messed up when using the plate cooler i didn`t run the cold water through fast enough and i had no way of reducing
the flow rate of the beer from the boiler, this was corrected for todays brew and i got the wort into the FV at 23 deg C so could pitch the yeast
straight away, the plate cooler did a fantastic job apart from it used about 250ltrs water to cool it that quick, but all the water was saved for
cleaning and also ready to brew with next time.

So far i`m quite pleased with how everthing is going but i need to sort out some bigger FV`s before i can do a full 200ltr brew,without spending a fortune as
the money for the brewery build is now almost all gone and i`m not allowed to have anymore

[WishboneBrewery]

You're getting there then... Good stuff

[Spud395]

Been following your build with interest, good to see you're in action.
What was up with the original FV's, not food grade?

[haz66]

Been following your build with interest, good to see you're in action.
What was up with the original FV's, not food grade?

Yes they were food grade and i thought i`d gotten rid of the traces of what were originally in them but the beer tasted
like the barrels originally smelt, i still have the barrels but am very reluctant to use them again as 110ltrs of beer down the drain
is a lot of wasted time and money , i use them for water and sterilser storage at the moment so allis not lost.

[Mattypower]

Good on you haz! you'll be knocking out some quality beer soon enough! what was your spring water like to brew with??

[haz66]

Good on you haz! you'll be knocking out some quality beer soon enough! what was your spring water like to brew with??

The spring water seems to be quality as between the water the mixing paddle and the spinny sparge arm my efficientcy has gone through the roof, i hav`nt treated the water in any of the test brews as i want to see if its ok as is first, none of the test brewed beer is anywhere near ready for drinking as yet so will have to wait and see what the end result is like.

[JontyR]

So far i`m quite pleased with how everthing is going but i need to sort out some bigger FV`s before i can do a full 200ltr brew,without spending a fortune as
the money for the brewery build is now almost all gone and i`m not allowed to have anymore

Haz, what would you intend to use as 200ltr FV's? I've been buying food grade 205/210 litre drums from a bloke in wakefield fo £6.00 apiece. They originally contained fruit juice.