Greeny's build-it-and-brew-it-in-a-day-athon

[Niall K]

Looking good Greeny. Looking forward to seeing your finished product. I too have a similar size stock pot bought of ebay and will be doing the same.

Niall

[greeny]

OK – who said that the day wouldn’t go without a hitch.

I have had a slight leak around one of the tank connectors. This was due to an O ring bulging out of position (due to over-tightening). I have now solved this. My advice to others who build one of these is to probably use a fibre washer.

My second problem is the height of the outlet valve and the capacity of the stockpot. I have positioned the outlet 40mm above the base of the pot to avoid a weld. This gives 2 problems. Firstly, with the pot internal diameter being 500mm, every 10mm of space below the tap in nearly 2 litres of dead space. Secondly the hop strainer does not lie on the base of the tank so it will be susceptible to coming off under the weight of the hops. To over come this I have made a new lengthened pipe to the strainer as shown below.



I decided upon a 70 litre capacity as I thought that it would allow 10G brews in the future. As it turns out when doing a 5G brew, the liquid may not fully cover the IC - something that I did not consider.

Other than these issues, both tanks are now complete. The HLT is on and heating up ready for popping my all grain cherry. Does it hurt?

[spearmint-wino]

Looking good

I've nearly got all the bits ready for mine, can't wait to build it up and get it working.

[delboy]

Good work.
I just drop the IC down into the boiler until its sitting on the bottom, works a lot better than hanging it on the side with just a few coils in the hot wort.

[oblivious]

Very nice work

[greeny]

OK. 13:30 saw me dough in. Temperature in the mash tun is 65.5 degC. At what point during the mash should you measure Ph? I want to measure for future reference. If there is something wrong today – tough. I have nothing to change Ph and I decided early on that my first day was going to be frantic enough - keep it simple. Is Ph constant between brews or does it change depending on recipe?

OK - Pics



Mash on.



Simple but very messy 3 tier setup. I will do something a little more permanent once I have got my head around the process.



Finally the sparge device. These are the newer replacements for the spinny from what I can tell. It looks like the priciple of operation is 'randomly splatter sparge water all over the shop'.

[Vossy1]

Gr8 work Greeny

Loving the shinyness and the brews a belter as well

[Vossy1]

Here's how those new spargy things work

[greeny]

As per DAAB’s advice, I have used a plate to collect some wort and the Ph looks closer to 5.5 than 5.2. Would I get any benefit from changing the Ph to 5.2?

OK – so here is the recipie.

100% Satisfaction
23 litre
OG 1040 FG 1009
IBU 24 ABV 4 %

Pale Malt 4.5kg

Mash Liquor 11 litres
Mash Temp 65°C
Mash Time 90 mins

Goldings 75g 90 mins
Goldings 15g 15 mins
Irish moss 5g 15 mins

Boil time 90 mins

What is the best yeast to use? I have Gervin English Ale, safale S-04 and Safale US-56.

I have Irish Moss and I also have Whirlfloc. Which is recommended?

[delboy]

I would use the Gervin unless you are in a hurry. The US56 would be good but you will have to wait around for ages before you found out what it was like as it takes so long to clear.

I'd second that, my last brew was with US-05 and coming up on three weeks (it had pretty much finished fermenting after the first week) I had to crash cool it in the fridge to get the yeast to fall.
The gervin/nottingham will yield a reasonably similar brew and it'll be ready to drink sooner so you can see what the whole hoh-hah is about AG brews

[Orkney_Rob]

That spreader for sparging looks very, very similar to ones I use in sewage treatment plants!!!!

Nice job mate - how about bunging a couple of bricks or something in the bottom of the tank to take up some of the dead space...

[greeny]

Rob - Why would you choose to sparge your brew in a sewage plant - don't you have a home to go to?

Well – we are boiling away nicely now.

Sparging was one thing that did concern me. I was not sure when to stop. Wait until the SG flowing from the MT was corrected to between 1.006 and 1.010? stop at a certain volume?
In the end I measured the temperature of the wort leaving the MT – it was 62 degC. I then used beersmith to calculate that at 62 degC the hydrometer reading must not drop below 1.000. I actually stopped a bit before that.

I looks like I have collected just under 33 litres pre boil.

For some reason I expected the runnings from the MT to look like beer. It was quite green in colour – is this normal?



Three tier setup having finished sparging.



Boil baby boil.

[mixbrewery]

At least you won't be getting a boil over with only 33lt in your 70 lt pot!
Cracking job there

If its not to late - go for the WHIRLFLOC and also give the brew a 15/20 mins settle after switching off.

[bandit]

Just a little note. If you are running two elements in the boiler they will use a lot of power. I would advise that you dont leave the extension lead coiled up as a lot of heat will be generated inside the coil.

Good luck and I hope you get the best results from you immense challenge

[greeny]

Thanks for your replies chaps.

I used 1 WHIRLFLOC tablet 20 mins before the end of the boil. I also remembered to stick the IC in 20 mins before the end of the boil. I forgot to stick the late hops in until just after I turned the elements off. I still put them in - the wort was just below boiling and so I am sure that they will be sterilised.

I had actually turned one element off. With just one element running the boil was still quite vigorous. Slap on the wrist for not un-coiling the extension lead – me being in the electrical industry as well.

I did let the thing stand for 20 mins prior to opening the tap to the IC. As I have removed the hanging part of the IC, any leaks where flexible pipes connect now drip straight into the brew!!!! Some butterfly clips are on the shopping list.



Chill out