im ready to set up my brewery - parts list required

[beesley121]

hi guys,

ive finally been given the go ahead to put together a brewery as long as it stays in the shed!! lol

anyways, I have to ss kegs to use. one will be for the HLT, the other for the boiler. I will be either buying a coolbox or a nordic optical bain marie for the mash tun depnding on price difference. What i need to do is geet a parts list together to put this all together. so here it goes.....

HLT

heating elements - size, wattage, 2 or 1
tank connector - is brass ok to use??
ball valve - screwfix sell these but unsuree if they are just coated in ss
ss teemperature gauge

MT

coolbox or bain marie???
tank connector
ball valve

BOILER

heating element - size, wattage, 2 or 1
tank connector
ball valve

ive got the odd little bits like 15mm and 22mm copper pipe and copper connections.

just really want avide on where to but all this stuff cheap and if i have to buy ss or will brass do

[jubby]

Let the brewing commence!!

Well beesley, you are going to be a busy man.

This is what I would do: HLT single immersion heater around 3kw of a length that will comfortably fit into your stainless keg using a brass boss from here: http://www.bes.co.uk/ Tree huggers would disagree, but in my opinion brass has such a low lead content, it's not worth worrying about. After all, my house has lead water pipes and more brass fittings than you can shake a stick at.

The ball valves are not stainless steel plated, they are nickel or chromed brass. Stainless valves are available but at a higher cost, I used standard brass plated ones.

Temp gauge from mashmaster although there are others out there. I liked the Mashmaster one because it has an adjuster screw so that it can be calibrated.

Boiler: I would use two immersion heaters, fitted as above, again with a plated brass ball valve and tank connector.

Mash tun: I went for the stainless bain marie as it was cheaper than a decent quality cool box at the time, although that's probably not the case now. I have not seen any for sale from Nordic Optical recently anyway.

Garth did a post on building these, I just copied his. He also sells the sight glass kits.

This is my HLT. I have now moved the temperature gauge to the level of the tap so it indicates the actual sparge water temp.





It's down to your budget really, you could do it cheaper with kettle elements etc.

[Garth]

nice pics Jubby! and good clean work

[arturobandini]

You can always go down the plastic brewery route to get yourself started.

There are loads of threads in the Equipment section for you to trawl through and even if you're not going to go Plastic there is so many pointers mixed in with the photos and comments.

Plastic Brewery Example

[jubby]

nice pics Jubby! and good clean work

Cheers Garth. Let's just say I was inspired

[vipergreen]

Let the brewing commence!!

Well beesley, you are going to be a busy man.

This is what I would do: HLT single immersion heater around 3kw of a length that will comfortably fit into your stainless keg using a brass boss from here: http://www.bes.co.uk/ Tree huggers would disagree, but in my opinion brass has such a low lead content, it's not worth worrying about. After all, my house has lead water pipes and more brass fittings than you can shake a stick at.

The ball valves are not stainless steel plated, they are nickel or chromed brass. Stainless valves are available but at a higher cost, I used standard brass plated ones.

Temp gauge from mashmaster although there are others out there. I liked the Mashmaster one because it has an adjuster screw so that it can be calibrated.

Boiler: I would use two immersion heaters, fitted as above, again with a plated brass ball valve and tank connector.

Mash tun: I went for the stainless bain marie as it was cheaper than a decent quality cool box at the time, although that's probably not the case now. I have not seen any for sale from Nordic Optical recently anyway.

Garth did a post on building these, I just copied his. He also sells the sight glass kits.

This is my HLT. I have now moved the temperature gauge to the level of the tap so it indicates the actual sparge water temp.





It's down to your budget really, you could do it cheaper with kettle elements etc.

That HLT is just what I want to do, I've searched but cant find Garths post regarding building these, anyone point me to it please.

Keen to know about cutting the holes, do you use a Qmax cutter ?, and what sizes do you need ? how do you deal with the 2 skins of the pot.

Many thanks

[Garth]

viper, the thread is here, viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11466&start=0

it was quite a way back, you may have to get info from jubby on drilling the thermoboxes as mine was single skin but you'll get the idea about how to fit the 3kW elements, use the proper hex spanner on one side and a band strap wrench on the other, they tighten up a treat using this method, make sure you use the fibre washer that comes with them one the outside.

[jubby]

Viper, unfortunately, it's not possible to use q-max cutters on these thermoboxes as they are double skin. However, you could use a standard hole cutter on the outer skin and a q-max cutter on the inner skin, pm bionicmunky, i think he has q-max cutters for rent. You will need a fair number of cutters. I used about six sizes but i had these already, if you needed to buy them, it would be fairly expensive because you would need high speed steel cutters to get through the stainless. As for sizes of cutters, you would need to measure the size of hole required to fit the tank connector/immersion etc plus the size of the socket required to tighten the securing nut, ie the outer skin hole must be bigger than the inner.

When cutting the holes with hole saws, set the drill to a very low speed otherwise the cutter will overheat and you will lose the cutting edge. I used water to cool whilst cutting the holes.