Help design my new brewery

TOOYOUNGTODIE

I wish to build a two tier stainless brewery, To date, I have acquired three kegs, a 30 plate chiller, four 4.5kw electric elements, and about 40ft of half inch gun barrel.


I intend to have 2 4.5kw elements in my copper and my hlt tank, should be more than enough power. I will wire them up to a thermostat and will insulate my mash tun.

I have been looking online and am trying to get my pump prices low. Any ideas without spend €160 on one. I want to have a single pump and use flexi hoses between tanks/chiller etc. I can buy 12v food friendly pumps for about 30quid and get an inverter- any good?

I will put thermometers on my mash and HLT and quick release valves, I will be using stainless braided hose as a screen in my mash tun and copper, it should keep my plate chiller clear.

Is there anything Im missing?. I have my planned brewery drawn out on MS paint but I cant uplaod it as I am a computer spastic.

Thanks

Khannie

To upload the image you choose "go advanced", choose "manage attachments", select "browse", find the file then hit "upload". That should do it. If you have it as a .bmp in mspaint, it might be worth changing it to a .jpg. If that last sentence sounds like gobbledigook to you then ignore it.

Shiny

The lads on Beoir were talking about using solar pumps a while ago here. Should be relatively cheap to power them too using old adapters.

TOOYOUNGTODIE

see draft of my plans attached. I will look into the solar pump. great idea.

Shiny

Also have a look at using something like this for drawing your dagram. It is much more powerful than paint for what your are doing. Those types of programs usually have icons for everything like pumps, wheels, pots etc...

TOOYOUNGTODIE

Thanks

I bought the solar pump, 14watt 11l / min. It should be well able for what i intend doing, has anyone an idea where I can get cheap weld in or weldless thermometers for my tanks

Mashtun

Best of luck with the build. What exactly is this copper that your on about, that gonna be your boil kettle? Interesting to see how the solar panel pump works out for you, do let us know!

On the temp probes, if you don't want to weld anything in you'll have bolt it into place and use gaskets for making it water tight. Alternatively you could get two of those meat temp probes and mount them on the sides of your tanks and fix the probes themselves in place where you want to read the temp from. Food grade, accurate and cheap + no drilling required!

TOOYOUNGTODIE

I took the plunge this morning and got three weldin thermometers, i have access to a tig welder for stainless.

Equipment list so far-

lenghts of steel
3 X 50l kegs
3 X weld in thermometers
4 X 4.5kw electrical elements
2 thermostats
1 High Temp Pump 12v with inverter
various weld in 1/2" attachments
30 plate stainless heat exchanger
6 castor wheels

Is there anything I am missing, I dont want to do a herms automated system as 1- I wont be able to make and 2- cant be bothered.

All in it should cost me 350 for brewery,

yea copper is brewkettle

Mashtun

Good for you! Take a few pics and keep us updated on the build!

Khannie

Mashtun wrote: »

Good for you! Take a few pics and keep us updated on the build!

Yeah, +1. Would really like to see some pics.

TOOYOUNGTODIE

i'll get some pics up, I dropped in all my equipment to the stainless fabricators last friday. I will have a stainless steel frame work and he'll polish up the kegs aswell.

It should look pretty cool, I hope it works alright as I had a bit of disaster over the weekend trying to get my mash temps stable on my current set up.

is 4.5kw enough to boil my wort and heat my hlt?. ill start a new thread on that maybe.

Mashtun

4.5Kw is loads man. Think you said at some stage you have four of them in total. They're going to draw a serious whack of current if they're running at the same time. You may need to account for this with regard to your electrical supply to your rig.

On the unstable mash temps, this is a super important thing if you want to get consistency in terms of hitting your numbers if you intend to use brewing software. If you're going to the bother of building a proper setup I would be conscientious of incorporating some means of maintaining your mash temp i.e. herms/rims. With a little bit of extra effort and planning you could make a big difference to your brewing long term!! Anyway if you have as many elements as you say you have you could definitley spare one for a herms tank. Couple that with two of those solar panel pumps and a few ball valves out of B&Q and you could have a fairly sophisticated setup:cool:

Just on a side note does anybody know where stainless tubing could be got and perhaps worked into a coil of a specified dimensions?

TOOYOUNGTODIE

what do you think

Mashtun

Fantastic. Specs, materials, any details on the build? But once again fair play for goin to the bother!

TOOYOUNGTODIE

Mashtun-
There is one 4.5kw element in Hlt with a half inch outlet & ball valve at the bottom into the top of mash tun with wire plate false bottom of mash tun, Mash tun runs through a filter aswell into 12V solar pump into the kettle, with two 4.5kw elements. i have a simmerstat controlling the elements so i can have a nice rolling boil. I have a false bottom and a filte running in the kettle and it flows direct into the plate cooler and runs through my pump into the FV.

I'v been playing with it since tuesday and am doing my first brew on saturday, cant wait, a nice belgian blonde.

I have an old cold storage room for fermentation, a constant 12 degress, using heat belts if im brewing ales etc.

Mashtun

If you want to control fermentation temps in the lower range and you can get your hands on an old chest freezer the temp inside that can be regulated with something as simple as a thermostat.

I detailed the build of the one i knocked together on this forum but all the pics i included in it are gone. The circuit design is still there mind!

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=70782599