50l Brewery Build

[Kyle_T]

Hello to one and all.

A friend and I are beginning a joint venture between us to install a 50l brewing system in his garage and a bottling facility in mine, I have read a few threads of builds before and always found them to be insightful and interesting so I thought I'd do one for ours, we are going for a 2 tier system as we have some old furniture to makes use of and I shall update with pictures as we go I have already ordered a new mash tun from Powell Brewing so we are already underway, below I shall put the parts list and the rough drawing I did for you to look at in the mean time:

HLT - 50L, Hop Strainer, 15mm Ball Valve, 1 x 2.3Kw Element, Male Hosebarb.

MT - 38.5L Thermopot, False Bottom, 15mm Ball Valve, Insulated, 90 Deg Compression Elbow and Male Hosebarb.

BLR - 50L, Hop Strainer, 15mm Ball Valve, 1 x 2.3Kw Element, 90 Deg Compression Elbow and Male Hosebarb.

10L Wort Transfer Bucket (Collects run off), 15mm Bulkhead Fitting and Female Hosebarb.

1 x 12V Solar Pump with 2 x Female Hosebarbs.
1 x Rotating Sparge Arm.
1 x Copper Coil Immersion Wort Chiller.
1 x STC-1000 Temperature Control Unit and Temperature Probe.

FV 1 & 2 - 2 x 25L Fermenting Bucket.
CDN FV - 2 x 25L Wine Fermenter, Bung, 2 Piece Airlock, Drum Tap.
BTL FV - 2 x 25L Fermenting Bucket, Bottle Tap + Stick.

And the drawing:



Feel free to post any ideas or suggestions and wish us luck!

Cheers

Kyle

[MashTim]

Looks great, it's mega fun getting a brewery together and getting your first brew done, all the best with it

[chivelegs]

Good Luck!
What sort of sparge arm are you using? It's the last part I haven't really got together in my set-up. Also, isn't that quite a small mash tun for a 50l set-up. I have a similar sized thermo-pot and it struggles to make a strong 28 litre brew (6+% ABV)

[Kyle_T]

Hello mate,

It's just about the right size for us, we both prefer session beers so around the 4% post and we will be brewing twice in one day by overlapping the schedule, we should be able to get a 6% brew out of it but we won't be going any higher than that, also we only brew to 23l brew length, we just like the head space.

With the sparge arm we are going to try the one from thehomebrewshop I think for £23.

Cheers

Kyle

[Fil]

hop filter in the hlt may be redundant, tho that was probably a typo,

I would consider 2 x elements in each vessel, giving you the option to speed up the heating upto temps. Tho that depends on the electricity supply.

Have you considered gas for the boiler? with a limited electricty supply it would allow HLT and Boiler running simultaneously


Not all IC chillers are the same, some are very efficient to a lil more complex, with a less efficient one you could be standing stirring over the IC for a good 30min+ trying to get 2 brews out you will want to free the boiler asap.

imho it would be worthwhile scrubbing down the boiler element(s?) between each brew to de-crud them, when attacked soon after use the crud comes off easy, but 2 brews worth of build up on the elements may lead to them dying early.

[Kyle_T]

We had considered running 2 elements but we haven't yet decided how many sockets were going to install but we have a sparky coming to look at the circuit breakers and fuse box.

I hadn't actually thought of using a gas burner for the boiler, the stand the HLT will sit on is actually my gas burner stand, I can always find something else to use as a stand, I have a gas bottle, regulator and pipe in the garage as well.

The chiller seems to work fine for the brew lengths we do but I might convert my old picnic cooler mash tun into an ice water reservoir and buy a second pump to shift ice cold water through the chiller to speed it up and so far I haven't had to stir it.

For the meantime we will try and do it for as cheap as possible by using what we already have but we can always upgrade it over time.

Thanks for the thoughts though. Some good ideas there.

[roscoe]

I would consider up'ing your BK size if your doing session strength beers without a dilution stage in FV pre/post ferm.

I've got an 80L MT and 100L BK and if I want to make <4.5% I can get 120L in BK, providing you go to fly spraging which once mastered is surprising less faff that batch spraging (never did notice much/any difference in efficiency)

Anyway, it's always nice to have headroom in boil kettle for containing a vigorous boil and all those hop cones, HLT is fine, to get things going you can heat the strike water and get mashing then topup HLT for sparge so it's fine.

[Kyle_T]

We did look at a 70l boiler but it seems a little unnecessary at the moment as the total boil volume on anything we've made doesn't usually come any higher than 40l...again usually. We do like a strong beer but not much, not often.

The head room on a regular brew was the important bit as I already have a 50l boiler for brewing in the kitchen and I've been lucky enough not to have a boil over yet, need to cut an exhaust hole in the lid mind.

That's also pretty much the process we are going to try, constantly heating up and refilling the hlt between jobs, we haven't worked out a full brew day schedule yet but I shall write something up.

[roscoe]

another handy thing is storage space, you might fit your HLT or MT inside a 70, it's very low cost to jump up 50L>70L before you get the drills out.

[Kyle_T]

I think the difference between a 50l pot and a 70l pot was £5, saying that it gives us more opportunities for what we brew, as for storage that won't be a problem, this will be a permanent set up so it should all have a right place but it is still something worth bearing in mind for us.

[floydmeddler]

Nice one man. There's something very cool about having a brewery in the garage.

[Kyle_T]

Thanks mate,

It will also serve a dual purpose not only to us as when built, we are considering offering its use to budding brewers in the surrounding areas who want to go AG or move up from BIAB. That way they can try a full AG before they go and spend out the money, all they have to do is bring their own malt and a few beers.

[floydmeddler]

Cool. Spread the word!

[Kyle_T]

A little update in the planning.

Have thought of reusing my cool box mash tun and by removing the manifold I can install a pump in it and use it as an ice water reservoir for the immersion chiller.

Please excuse the crudity of the drawings, didn't have time to colour them and draw them to scale:



Key:

HLT - Hot Liquor Tank
MT - Mash Tun
BLR - Boiler
CB - Cool Box
SA - Sparge Arm
TB - Transfer Bucket
FV - Fermenting Vessel
SP - Solar Pump

Have a look and post your suggestions/advice, as always, much appreciated.

Cheers

Kyle

[Fil]

In order to chill a 23-5l brew down below 20C for pitching in a closed system, i think your gonna need in excess of 100l of 0C water.

using the coldbox for taking you below 30C after using tap water to drop the bulk of the temperature may be more expedient.