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What's brewing?

ChiXJeff said:
I'm still thinking, but it's going to be a 3 station single tier, aka Brutus 10 style. 6 feet long, stations on probably 24" centers, 2x2x0.120" T304 stainless, with 15" or 16" openings for burners, and mounted on 2"x6" wheels. Top surface to be probably 20-24" from the ground, with mountings for a couple of March pumps on the lower level. I'll probably get the basic sculpture welded together this summer, not sure when I'll be able to finish outfitting it. Oh, and 3 burners. I've got a Bayou Classic SG14 burner that seems to work quite well, much more efficient than the usual turkey fryer burner and rather controllable. One of my goals is to be able to hose this thing down with a pressure washer (yes, that means the March pumps will be removable,) besides, I just like stainless for this sort of thing.

At least initially, I'll continue to use my immersion chiller, but I'll have it set up to add a plate chiller (or a Phillzilla, etc.) at the drop of a hat.
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While I think "wash down" is a notable design attribute in a 3 X 1/2 bbl system, you will undoubtedly spend more money (x3 or 4) than i think it's worth.

If you design and build process/work flow and ergonomics into your design, clean-up is not going to be an issue.

Once you get a few batches down, process will become habit. I simply don't make mess. I don't boil over, and I don't spill.


here's some pics from sunday....vienna style lager, double decoction.

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lesslimited said:
I remember the good ol' days when you used to invite me over to brew :tear:

I do need to get off my ass and finish the gas plumbing and other misc details on the all-grain rig. Extract bores me, and with the local liquor store's specials of good beer for 10-14 bucks/case, there's little motivation to put in the effort.
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brewing on friday....

maybe two batches......

gonna do an american brown higher-than-bjcp IBU's....and a cali common, all northern brewer whole.

i'm so sick of belgians at this point.
 
Beezil said:
While I think "wash down" is a notable design attribute in a 3 X 1/2 bbl system, you will undoubtedly spend more money (x3 or 4) than i think it's worth.

If you design and build process/work flow and ergonomics into your design, clean-up is not going to be an issue.

Once you get a few batches down, process will become habit. I simply don't make mess. I don't boil over, and I don't spill.


here's some pics from sunday....vienna style lager, double decoction.
Click to expand...

<chuckle> I'm not doing this because it's cheap. The plan is to size the sculpture so that I can go larger if I want by replacing kettles and nothing else. I do agree with the process thoughts, though. I think I've boiled over only a few times in 4 years, by far the exception rather than the rule.

Is that a Blichmann autosparge I see? How do you like it?
 
Hmmm..... something else I should consider. A Sankey keggle is only about 16 1/8" in diameter, narrower than I was thinking. If I build this thing with 15" open spacing above the burners, that won't leave much wiggle room for the keggle, and it'd only be supported by a few inches total at 4 points around the circumference. I guess I could always add a couple of cross members later if I ever go the keggle route.

Or, just drop the spacing over the burners down to 14" or less. Shoot, I could probably go all the way down to 12" and still have plenty of room for the burner & flame. I'd still leave the station spacing at 24" or more, there's no down side to keeping the stations apart.
 
What's brewing?

After the double helping of triple dipped ribs and 7 Belgian Whites?!?

A full bore, half roll, shit! That's what is brewing!
 
ChiXJeff said:
Hmmm..... something else I should consider. A Sankey keggle is only about 16 1/8" in diameter, narrower than I was thinking. If I build this thing with 15" open spacing above the burners, that won't leave much wiggle room for the keggle, and it'd only be supported by a few inches total at 4 points around the circumference. I guess I could always add a couple of cross members later if I ever go the keggle route.

Or, just drop the spacing over the burners down to 14" or less. Shoot, I could probably go all the way down to 12" and still have plenty of room for the burner & flame. I'd still leave the station spacing at 24" or more, there's no down side to keeping the stations apart.
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I will take some more pics of the burners and measure the height off the burner tips.

DSC_4914.jpg


this is the only one i really have.....
 
Interesting shots of a single tier on NB's all grain board in the last couple of days got me thinking again last night and this morning. I might add 2"x0.25" bar in a diamond pattern inside of that. With 24" station spacing, and the tubing welded up on 16" square spacing, that gives around 12.7" square for the burner. That should be pretty easy to put together, and let me run pretty much anything from a 10 gallon kettle to over 30.
 
ChiXJeff said:
Interesting shots of a single tier on NB's all grain board in the last couple of days got me thinking again last night and this morning. I might add 2"x0.25" bar in a diamond pattern inside of that. With 24" station spacing, and the tubing welded up on 16" square spacing, that gives around 12.7" square for the burner. That should be pretty easy to put together, and let me run pretty much anything from a 10 gallon kettle to over 30.
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LOL @ NB forum.....

I am permabanned.

fags.
 
<chuckle> So I've heard. There are some uptight folks over there. There is the occasional bit of good information, though.

Denny Conn: "Sometime you just have to ask yourself, why isn't anybody else doing this?" in response to "Why not a wooden barrel mash tun?"
 
Shoot, one thing that I'd like to pick up, and keep forgetting to put down: a grain mill. Then again, I'm really not sure how much grain I'm going to stock, NB & Midwest Supply are just too convenient.
 
ChiXJeff said:
<chuckle> So I've heard. There are some uptight folks over there. There is the occasional bit of good information, though.

Denny Conn: "Sometime you just have to ask yourself, why isn't anybody else doing this?" in response to "Why not a wooden barrel mash tun?"
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i don't know what the final straw was....battling with brooklyn brewer or pairing John Palmer with Richard Simmons every chance I got.

Of course, I got banned at greenboard and Morebeer too, so, maybe the whole homebrewing internet community are a bunch of pillow biting bedwetters.

do people still worship denny?

btw, a few years ago I stopped in StPaul after a pheasant hunting trip. I stopped at NB to pick up some bags of grain. I had been on the road for four hours and had to crap. I asked to use the Lou which was in a dungeon of a basement or some back room. I remember it resembling a gas station bathroom. I wrote "beezil was here" on the cover of one of their reading materials, and during the improptu "book signing" forgot to flush the toilet.

true story.
 
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I've met Denny, he's a pretty decent guy to hoist a beer with. God? Not IMO, but he does brew good beer on a shoestring budget. I'm fairly sure he doesn't take himself as seriously as lot of people do.

The NB St. Paul store is.....ummm...... unique & cramped, for sure.
 
There's a can of worms.

Glass is heavy & slippery. It's fairly easy to clean, especially if you never, ever, ever let anything dry in it. If you drop it, it will shatter.

Plastic is light, but prone to scratches which are impossible to sanitize. Never reach into it with anything that's got a sharp edge or end. Even some bottle brushes will scratch it.

That kit is fermentation equipment only. You can make beer from extract with nothing more than a pot & a burner. For all grain brewing, you'll need a mash tun, something like a cooler or another kettle with a false bottom or drain screen.
 
ChiXJeff said:
There's a can of worms.

Glass is heavy & slippery. It's fairly easy to clean, especially if you never, ever, ever let anything dry in it. If you drop it, it will shatter.

Plastic is light, but prone to scratches which are impossible to sanitize. Never reach into it with anything that's got a sharp edge or end. Even some bottle brushes will scratch it.

That kit is fermentation equipment only. You can make beer from extract with nothing more than a pot & a burner. For all grain brewing, you'll need a mash tun, something like a cooler or another kettle with a false bottom or drain screen.
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i was thinking the same thing for the cooler, because every set up i have seen on line had the cooler set up. only reason i am asking is because a guy i work with just did a NB all grain kit that he cut in half and did in the MR beer set up. he still has it fermenting so im not sure how it turned out. i think ill stick to extract for a while, and just upgrade from the Mr beer.(that kit is as easy as making mac and cheese)
 
<scratches head> You'd have to mash & boil outside the Mr. Beer, then just use it for fermentation.

Beezil will hate me for this. Go dig through the American Homebrewer's National Conference proceedings for Denny Conn's presentations. I know he did one in 2010, I was there. He does all grain on less than a shoe string budget, simple batch mashing in a cooler.

I forgot to say last time... I run primary fermentation in plastic buckets, and if I want secondary, in glass carboys. Clean them IMMEDIATELY after draining before anything dries on, and they almost rinse clean, definitely just wipe clean. The buckets never, ever see anything like a scrubby pad or a bottle brush, nothing more than a dish cloth.
 
Yea it was a head scratcher for me also. i will hunt for that presentation after lunch it will give me something to do at work today.

im hoping to make it to brewfest earlier this year, the last 2 i got in kinda late and didn't really pay attention to the beer making.
 
ChiXJeff said:
<scratches head> You'd have to mash & boil outside the Mr. Beer, then just use it for fermentation.

Beezil will hate me for this. Go dig through the American Homebrewer's National Conference proceedings for Denny Conn's presentations. I know he did one in 2010, I was there. He does all grain on less than a shoe string budget, simple batch mashing in a cooler.

I forgot to say last time... I run primary fermentation in plastic buckets, and if I want secondary, in glass carboys. Clean them IMMEDIATELY after draining before anything dries on, and they almost rinse clean, definitely just wipe clean. The buckets never, ever see anything like a scrubby pad or a bottle brush, nothing more than a dish cloth.
Click to expand...

I've been doing primary and secondary in plastic buckets. I clean mine with a sponge and rinse with hot water. They air dry after that and get filled with sanitizer before chilled wort goes in. I put my hoses and other plastic items inside to sanitize, so that sanitizer isn't specifically for that. I used to move that sanitizer to a bucket to put my bottles in, but nowadays it gets moved to a corny to sanitize for kegging. The cornies have really helped with secondary as well. I recently took to krausening with a spunding valve, which is awfully convenient and saves the 'free' CO2.
 
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