Home Brewery build.
Posted: Sun May 22, 2016 11:26 am
After many years of home brewing (that's a scary number of years, so I'm not telling) I decided it was time for a new "brewery". I was moving home (six years ago) and this was the drive behind a new build. I actually got to choose a house with suitable room to adapt into the "brewery" (or a utility room for folk not sharing the brewing passion).
Criteria for the build:
It was in the house, so it had to look the part.
It had to have a larger capacity than I had previously! I.e. 40-70 litres rather than 25 litres.
It was to be an "installation". No more buckets in a cupboard for me.
I always suspected plastic buckets were "stealing" aroma from my brew. Never proved, but this was to be a stainless steel assembly.
I'd come across the "Electric Brewery". Good starting point for a construction.
HERMS or RIMS? Ah, why not decide later and have both!
I'd got a room (ex downstairs loo!), but it created a very confined space to cram everything into.
So, come up with basic designs and start collecting bits and pieces. Then three/four years ago all stop! Developed rather suddenly (the way with these things) a severe "TBI" (look it up). Several months later and the possibility of resurrecting the brewery project became a possibility again, although it was now a "rehabilitation" project! Did mean I could put a lot more time into it.
After much searching I found Paul at Angel Home Brew to make my brew vessels; wish I had learnt about him earlier as I could source a hell of a lot of hard to find bits from him.
I'd got the basic layout (click on pickie to open if the bottom has been truncated):
From that developed a decent schematic. Note one space saving development was pushing the HLT under the worktop so only the working vessels (mashtun and boiler) were on he worktop: Because the HLT was relatively inaccessible it needed a good bit of "automation", like pumps, level sensors, motorised valve, temperature sensor, etc. Drainage is a bit of a problem with it on the floor too, solved with a, err... bilge pump.
After two years building (and another tweaking) I end up with:
I'll post my "Brewery Manual" shortly which should help anyone embarking on a similar project.
Criteria for the build:
It was in the house, so it had to look the part.
It had to have a larger capacity than I had previously! I.e. 40-70 litres rather than 25 litres.
It was to be an "installation". No more buckets in a cupboard for me.
I always suspected plastic buckets were "stealing" aroma from my brew. Never proved, but this was to be a stainless steel assembly.
I'd come across the "Electric Brewery". Good starting point for a construction.
HERMS or RIMS? Ah, why not decide later and have both!
I'd got a room (ex downstairs loo!), but it created a very confined space to cram everything into.
So, come up with basic designs and start collecting bits and pieces. Then three/four years ago all stop! Developed rather suddenly (the way with these things) a severe "TBI" (look it up). Several months later and the possibility of resurrecting the brewery project became a possibility again, although it was now a "rehabilitation" project! Did mean I could put a lot more time into it.
After much searching I found Paul at Angel Home Brew to make my brew vessels; wish I had learnt about him earlier as I could source a hell of a lot of hard to find bits from him.
I'd got the basic layout (click on pickie to open if the bottom has been truncated):
From that developed a decent schematic. Note one space saving development was pushing the HLT under the worktop so only the working vessels (mashtun and boiler) were on he worktop: Because the HLT was relatively inaccessible it needed a good bit of "automation", like pumps, level sensors, motorised valve, temperature sensor, etc. Drainage is a bit of a problem with it on the floor too, solved with a, err... bilge pump.
After two years building (and another tweaking) I end up with:
I'll post my "Brewery Manual" shortly which should help anyone embarking on a similar project.