ANY LAST MINUTE BREWDAY TIPS
Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 10:06 pm
My brewing calculator is just about done; it just needs a couple of calculations, such as boil-off evaporation and brew-house efficiency checked against my first AG brew. I’m stuck for a formula for the hop alpha acid “time over gravity†chart, so I’ll have to enter it manually for now.
I’m not going to bore you with the details because lets be honest, it will only appeal to a few.
I’ve only done my own as part of my fun and frugal approach and to get an understanding of what the numbers actually mean.
I’ve fitted taps to my 3 fermentation vessels, drilled a 40mm hole in one of them, removed the element from a Tesco value kettle and fitted it to a £31.00 rheostat from http://www.pecoservices.co.uk/unitrader/shop/product/3 That makes my total boiler cost £45.00. That’s about £20 cheaper than buying one ready made.
My mash tun is a Thermos cooler box that I’ve had for years. Because of the cost of copper pipe, I’ve decided to use 21.5mm PVC overflow pipe for the sparge feed and filter. This is made up of a drilled continuous loop of pipe within the lid of the box to drip onto the grains.
I’m still unconvinced that anything less than a rotary arm will avoid channelling but will be grateful of anybody’s thoughts on this.
For convenience, I have fixed the sparge pipe within the lid void of the cooler. The only issues I had with this set up were water cooling and disturbing the grain bed. I don’t think water dripping through the air space between the pipes and the grain bed will cool that much or disrupt that much really.
My mash filter is the same set up as my sparger and sits on the bottom of the cooler box mash tun.
My heat exchanger is going to be the usual 10mm Microbore copper pipe inside a garden hose. Why re-invent the wheel. I’ve decided to finish each end off with a “T†and 2, 50mm piece of 15mm copper pipe. One soldered to the leg and one of the arms of the “T†the remaining open arm gets a 15mm to 10mm reducer soldered to it. These will then get fitted to the hose and soldered to the 10mm after it’s been fed through the hose.
I’ve seen that loads of you have made these already. Does the 10mm bend inside the hose without kinking? I’ve seen one that is quite tightly wound. I think it was on Horden Hillbilly’s site. If you are reading, let me know Dave.
I’ve bought the ingredients for Jim’s Pale Ale, but before that one gets brewed I’m taking advantage of a Barley Bottom all grain Woolly Jumper pack. I think these all grain kits are an excellent idea, all the ingredients are bagged or vacuum packed and because they are delivered free of charge it works out just 12p more expensive than buying the component parts of the recipe.
I think this will be an ideal brew to test my brewhouse calculator.
I’ve compared some of the Barley Bottom data sheet figures with my calculator.
Our SG’s don’t match which must be down to the potential gravity factor given to the 4kg of pale Maris Otter (mine is set to 310 per kg/l) and our IBU’s are out by 1.1 this could be down to pre or post boil volumes used for the formula. It would be interesting to know how they arrive at the figures given, just to see where I’ve made my schoolboy error. Let me know Paul.
I’ve got to get this brew done on the weekend, my missis is kicking off because I’ve got unfinished coolers, spargers and tuns on the kitchen floor. She’s going to be well impressed when I put it all together and there’s wet mash running down one of our dining room chairs, hot trub on the kitchen floor and a few litres of malted hop steam hanging in the air.
I’m not going to bore you with the details because lets be honest, it will only appeal to a few.
I’ve only done my own as part of my fun and frugal approach and to get an understanding of what the numbers actually mean.
I’ve fitted taps to my 3 fermentation vessels, drilled a 40mm hole in one of them, removed the element from a Tesco value kettle and fitted it to a £31.00 rheostat from http://www.pecoservices.co.uk/unitrader/shop/product/3 That makes my total boiler cost £45.00. That’s about £20 cheaper than buying one ready made.
My mash tun is a Thermos cooler box that I’ve had for years. Because of the cost of copper pipe, I’ve decided to use 21.5mm PVC overflow pipe for the sparge feed and filter. This is made up of a drilled continuous loop of pipe within the lid of the box to drip onto the grains.
I’m still unconvinced that anything less than a rotary arm will avoid channelling but will be grateful of anybody’s thoughts on this.
For convenience, I have fixed the sparge pipe within the lid void of the cooler. The only issues I had with this set up were water cooling and disturbing the grain bed. I don’t think water dripping through the air space between the pipes and the grain bed will cool that much or disrupt that much really.
My mash filter is the same set up as my sparger and sits on the bottom of the cooler box mash tun.
My heat exchanger is going to be the usual 10mm Microbore copper pipe inside a garden hose. Why re-invent the wheel. I’ve decided to finish each end off with a “T†and 2, 50mm piece of 15mm copper pipe. One soldered to the leg and one of the arms of the “T†the remaining open arm gets a 15mm to 10mm reducer soldered to it. These will then get fitted to the hose and soldered to the 10mm after it’s been fed through the hose.
I’ve seen that loads of you have made these already. Does the 10mm bend inside the hose without kinking? I’ve seen one that is quite tightly wound. I think it was on Horden Hillbilly’s site. If you are reading, let me know Dave.
I’ve bought the ingredients for Jim’s Pale Ale, but before that one gets brewed I’m taking advantage of a Barley Bottom all grain Woolly Jumper pack. I think these all grain kits are an excellent idea, all the ingredients are bagged or vacuum packed and because they are delivered free of charge it works out just 12p more expensive than buying the component parts of the recipe.
I think this will be an ideal brew to test my brewhouse calculator.
I’ve compared some of the Barley Bottom data sheet figures with my calculator.
Our SG’s don’t match which must be down to the potential gravity factor given to the 4kg of pale Maris Otter (mine is set to 310 per kg/l) and our IBU’s are out by 1.1 this could be down to pre or post boil volumes used for the formula. It would be interesting to know how they arrive at the figures given, just to see where I’ve made my schoolboy error. Let me know Paul.
I’ve got to get this brew done on the weekend, my missis is kicking off because I’ve got unfinished coolers, spargers and tuns on the kitchen floor. She’s going to be well impressed when I put it all together and there’s wet mash running down one of our dining room chairs, hot trub on the kitchen floor and a few litres of malted hop steam hanging in the air.
