Blighty's brewday with his new brewery

[BlightyBrewer]

Thanks guys!

She's fermenting away like a good'un in the cupboard under the stairs. Here's a picture of the krausen. Thrown up a lot of crud.



I think my next project will have to be a temperature controlled fermentation set-up - like the one described in the latest issue of Brewer's Contact, courtesy of steve flack - great article steve!

[BlightyBrewer]

Ah, the Swan. Isn't that the pub next to the ballet school where that guy got tasered for waiving a fake hand-gun around?

That's the one

Fuchi is a few doors up from Forbidden Desires (the gentlemans book shop) where the old snooker club used to be.

Ah yes, I think they were starting to do that place up just before I left.

[BlightyBrewer]

Blighty's (New) Brewery:

I'm having a major rethink on my brewery.

The extractor has gone - the steam from the boil would condense on the cold metal surface and drop into my beer - stupid idea putting it up really as there is a door right next to the boiler!

The mash tun is not performing well. It has dropped 6C over an hour for the last two brews. I do put this down to the fact that is has been 7C in my garage for both brewdays (can't help much!), but still, I'm not happy with the tun. I insulated the lid with expanding foam, but this didn't really help. I'm thinking of mashing in a bag in the boiler (which I can use to add heat if need be), and transferring the grains to a fermenter to use as a lauter tun before washing out and sterlising for fermenting. Any thoughts?

I'm definitely going to use an immersion chiller from now on. I spent loads on constructing both and IC and CFC, but I think all the hassle of cleaning a CFC has sealed its fate.

I'm after Daab's principle of a relaxed brewday, hence the tweaks. Any thoughts / additions to the brewery?

[prodigal2]

Hi there BB. I like you had been suffering from heat loss from my cool box too. So I have taken a couple of steps that seem to only result in a 1 degree drop if its cold over a 90 min mash.

The first thing I have done, is to wrap the exterior of the coolbox body(all sides and botom) with bacofoil. I have attached this with gaffa tape. I have then gaffa taped a bin bag over the body of the foil covered cool box to stop the foil from getting scuffed and pulled of the cool box. I then applied baco foil to the bottom of the cool box lid shinny side down.

Next is heat your liquor for the mash upto about 85-90C add to your mash tun, seal and then wrap up with your extra insulation leave for 20mins(or the time it takes to weigh your grist and have a cup of tea),then check the temp, adjust to prefered temp(I tend to just stir a bit and leave for a few mins if its to high) and then dough in as per usual and wrap up.

If everything is cold it is very easy to drop 10C in 20 mins(better with the water than when my malt is in there )

I would say its worth a punt.

[Graham]

That HLT has improved my brewing experience tenfold. It heats the water up to 73C in no time. Before I had to heat up the water in my boiler for mashing and sparging, and transfer the wort from another vessel to the boiler as soon as sparging was finished - a right royal PITA! Now I just fill er up and turn er on! (or is it the other way round?)

What's the HLT made from? Looks like a plastic wine fermentor, judging by the cap. Mine is similar, but made from a home-brew cask - no insulation though on mine though.

[BlightyBrewer]

That HLT has improved my brewing experience tenfold. It heats the water up to 73C in no time. Before I had to heat up the water in my boiler for mashing and sparging, and transfer the wort from another vessel to the boiler as soon as sparging was finished - a right royal PITA! Now I just fill er up and turn er on! (or is it the other way round?)

What's the HLT made from? Looks like a plastic wine fermentor, judging by the cap. Mine is similar, but made from a home-brew cask - no insulation though on mine though.

Yes, it's a plastic wine fermenter. I have insulated it with a camping mat and cheap thermawrap - works well. Better than the stupid cool box mash tun anyway!

Thanks for the advice prodigal2.

You forgot to mention 'next, move to sunny spain'

[BlightyBrewer]

The other improvement I want to make to the brewery is set-up controlled fermentation/ kegerator. I have the ATC800, but I can't find a fridge on freecycle for love nor money! The search goes on.....(my pockets are too deep to shell out on a new one)