Breweryblog

Further thoughts on whether to use ‘thermopots’ instead of pans for the HLT and the copper are still not resolved! If I was any more indecisive I’d never get out of bed in the morning.

But in a way it’s not really an issue. This weekend has been sent in Nijmegen (in the Netherlands) supporting Sarah who is currently sat in a conference no doubt anxiously as her first presentation to the public of her research approaches. It’s important work I’m sure you will agree. Next weekend will be dedicated to moving Freddie into his halls in Greenwich. And the weekend after that I believe I’ll be moving Alice into her new flat in York I’m sure Martha will be able to come up with some activity for me the weekend after that! My Halloween beer is looking seriously like a Christmas brew! If I’m lucky that is. Sheesh.

Well, I’ve ordered a bigger Q-max cutter, and added a micro pipe bender to the order to average out the postage costs. I’ve now received an email to say the bigger cutter is out of stock! Pah! And to make matters worse, I have doubts that I’ve ordered the right size again.

This actual building of stuff in the real is very complicated!

Well, I’m still waiting for some stuff, but yesterday the q-max cutter arrived and today the skin fittings. Whoop, I can start making holes and putting fittings in them 😀

Ah, ere no. All fittings are half inch BSP so I ordered a 1/2″ q-max. Wrong, so tomorrow I need to order a larger cutter 😥

Having compared the cutter with the valves and skin fittings I’m at a loss as to what is being measured as 1/2″ I can’t lay my hands on my vernier at the moment, so I’m not sure if either of them actually have any half inch measurements. That said, the only measuring stick I can find is metric but suggests the cutter is somewhere in the region of 13mm. So it begs the question, what is the half inch referring to with 1/2″ BSP fittings?

This is the schematic diagram of my planned brewery. The HLT and Copper are 70l stainless steel pots and the Mast tun is a 50l insulated stainless pot.

Beardy’s brewery

Details not shown are: Both the HLT and the copper will have electric elements; at least the HLT will have a sight tube;  both the Mash Tun and the Copper will have false bottoms.

So far I have got the pots, the valves and the sight tube. I need to chase up a couple of suppliers who do not seem to like email (or decide not to use Stainless steel and visit B&Q!). I also need to confirm the false bottom sizes and agree how I will pay for them. If I get a move on I should be able to get all the stuff be the end of the week.

This is where I’m going to detail the building of my home brewery. As I get to know a little more about wordpress I shall be altering the structure of these pages to better suit my purpose. Plans I have at the moment are for a section on the build, a section of the brewing and a section on the beer drinking.

I’ve started to collect the stuff I need for the build, and have ordered other bits. As I get more organised, I’ll post pictures of the bits and the build, along with an inventory of parts and links to the suppliers I use.

One link I will put up now though, is a link to Jim’s Beer Kit which is a home brew forum where most of the knowledge I am gleaning is coming from. I’d recomend it to anyone who is either home brewing or thinking of home brewing, no question seems to be too stupid and you will nearly always receive at least one answer. All in all, a very friendly forum.