New 'Commercial' 200l brewery

[dloper]

Did a dummy run today, water only. Took 2 hours for my kettle to heat 140 litres of water from 12 degrees to 80 degrees.
Pumped 80 litres into my mash tun, which lost 3 degrees in the process, which should put me very close to my strike temperature. Over 1.5 hours in the mash tun it lost a further 3 degrees. The lid was noticeably warm, so a bit of insulation on top will hopefully reduce the temperature loss.

The remaining 60 litres in the kettle was topped up to 120 litres and heated to 80 degrees in 1.25 hours and pumped into my hlt.

Once my 'mash' was finished, the water in the mash tun was drained into the kettle, as was the 'sparge' water from my HLT, topping up the kettle to 230 litres ( I left 30 litres in the HLT to simulate the grain absorption. It took `1.75 hours to boil. Once boiling, I switched off one of my two 3kw elements, but although it still boiled, it wasn't vigorous enough, so I'll be using the full 6kw when brewing for real.

My 60kw heat exchanger cooled the 230 litres from boiling to 21 degrees in 1 hour. Hopefully, with a little experimenting with flow rates I can reduce this further and if I'd brewed for real, I would expect to cool at least 10% less, after evaporation over a full boil time.

So, all in all, a fairly successful day.

[Fil]

No spills or valves left open when filling well done.. sounds like your set to brew.

[darkonnis]

Have you insulated your boiler? It takes a lot more energy to "boil" water than it does to heat it so if it isn't insulated the boil is where you'll notice it most.

Though to be honest, I'd be surprised if you could boil 230L with jsut 3kw!

[dloper]

I have to admit I did have one or two spills - and a minor steam scald. But maybe that's why it's called a dummy run

The boiler is insulated with 50mm of Celotex foam, covered with radiator reflective foil, as is the lid. It's barely warm to the touch when boiling. Having checked the electricity meter before and after, I'd use 35 units for a real brew, if I started from cold.

One thing that did surprise me when using the heat exchanger was that the cooling water came out several degrees hotter than the 'wort'.

[robbarwell]

Sounds like your nearly there.
when you've got your mash tun full of grain you will find that you will lose less heat for some reason. I'm currently building a 4.5Bbl, I have been advised that my HLT will be too small at 850 litres and that 1000 litres would be better. However I intend to do just as you demonstrate here. Heat strike water in the copper and get the sparge water heated in the HLT whilst the mash

[dloper]

Sounds similar robbarwell, but I'm only using the kettle for heating.

[Cazamodo]

Sounds like your nearly there.
when you've got your mash tun full of grain you will find that you will lose less heat for some reason. I'm currently building a 4.5Bbl, I have been advised that my HLT will be too small at 850 litres and that 1000 litres would be better. However I intend to do just as you demonstrate here. Heat strike water in the copper and get the sparge water heated in the HLT whilst the mash

I brew on a 2bbl set up and have a 850L HLT, and find I use on average 440L per brew to give me 340L in the fermenter. So you may well just get away with the HLT for 4.5 if you wanted.

[darkonnis]

Nothing wrong with it being too big though, nobody says you have to fill it. Just a question of cost, for the HLT I'd be going second hand as all its doign is heating water, so not like you need to be picky on shape or fittings or anything like that.

[dloper]

That's true but If I can, I prefer to keep my fermenters and bright tanks as full as is feasible. Too much headspace worries me!

P.S. Ordered all my ingredients today - a bit of cleaning, another dummy run, a visit from the environmental health man and I'll be brewing
It seems a shame though, here in the Spey Valley, surrounded by fields of barley, probably destined to be malted for the whisky industry, yet I have to pay a fortune to have brewing malt shipped up from the south.

[Jonnyconga]

Sounds great. Any photos of the final setup?! Amazing how long it takes for you to heat the water - you thought of putting in a dedicated high current circuit so you can power more watts of elements? (I'm sure you have..!)

[darkonnis]

That's true but If I can, I prefer to keep my fermenters and bright tanks as full as is feasible. Too much headspace worries me!

P.S. Ordered all my ingredients today - a bit of cleaning, another dummy run, a visit from the environmental health man and I'll be brewing
It seems a shame though, here in the Spey Valley, surrounded by fields of barley, probably destined to be malted for the whisky industry, yet I have to pay a fortune to have brewing malt shipped up from the south.

I was meaning the HLT, I'd rather have one thats too big than too small, that way when it comes to water recovery you have have loads of space

[charliepirate]

very interesting read, myself and a friend who owns a bar are looking into a small brewery using an outbuilding he has at his home on the outskirts of the broch ( birthplace of brewdog), I have been looking at the braumeister units solely because they do seem to be a lot more user friendly, they may not produce better beer but from what I have read they don't produce a lesser beer either, although they are pricey, I look forward to further updates on your progress

[darkonnis]

They're a good solution to a problem, if you lack space and need as compact a piece of kit as possible they're ideal. Though I would suggest you'd be better buying a cheap and cheerful small kit (cool box mash tun, buffalo boiler, plastic FV) and learning the craft properly first, unless you can afford 15k for the 200L braumeister and kit. You can build a much bigger brewery for the amount of money they're charging.

[charliepirate]

I understand where you are coming from, in regards to the price of the braumeister I do realise you can get a lot bigger system for your money elsewhere with a more traditional set up but in regards to space and user friendliness I think they come out top, is it worth the extra money / lower output? well I suppose that is a matter of opinion, my idea would be to get to grips with a 50L braumeister and if I was happy with the results then to look to invest serious cash in a 200, I have also seen on other web pages clones that people have made themselves for much less outlay, although I have not found anyone who has made a 200 clone, would be interesting to see if any of the local fabricators / engineering shops could make something up

[darkonnis]

The thing with the 200 is you need a crane to get the malt tube out. No problem there really just a bit more work.
If you're looking at fabrication you'll be in fora shock, lots of places don't do it as you need 304 stainless and the few that I found that would gave silly estimates. Scotia on here makes breweries and will do little bits for a very fair price as and when he has the time but hes usually quite busy with the proper jobs.