Build log of a Danish brewery

Hi there

I already have a thread on the brewtroller forum, but I thought that a thread here would work as well.

We are a group of 6 people building a brewery capable of producing 60l batches. Its a single tier, 3 vessel HERMS based system. Pumps, valves and heating is controlled by brewtroller.

First off, a P&I diagram.



All valves and pumps is connected with 1/2" silicone hose, so it should be pretty easy to accommondate future changes.

A picture of the stand, to give an idea of the overall size



A picture of the newly welded vessels




Lastly a picture of a temperary setup I made to test the heating element with PID control



More pictures in my picasa album https://picasaweb.google.com/jacobguldberg/Brewery#

Those are some nice vessels. They are insulated? Is that floor made of end cut wood?
I saw a house with a floor made from 4x4" end cut mesquite, it was beautiful.

Yup, they are insulated. Paid 350$ in total for all 3, shipped. Not a bad deal. There is some minor flaws, but for that price I dont care. The insulation was a pain for the welder though.

It is the floor of the workshop at my job. Its some 40 years old. Not very suitable for a workshop, impossible to clean, and water can pop up a large section when it dries out. Cant imagine how black the smoke would look if you burnt them

Really cool vessels. Could you provide a link for them?

Here is a link trough google translate to the seller in Germany
insulated vessel

I've thought of buying them too, but I need to find a welder

Alternately there's a version with a tap fitted


That could be used with this so I don't need to cut holes
2000W Heating element


But I am still in the planing phase

I wish those were for sale here in the states at that price. That is a great deal. I'm planning to make the switch to electric soon and those would be perfect. I bet they'd make nice fermenters too with an airlock added to the lid.

I saw a show on tv where they did a floor just like yours. What they did was use a sawdust mixture as grout, I think it was mixed with some type of glue, and then they put a couple coats of polyurethane over it all. It looked really good when it was done.

The brewery is looking great, keep the pics coming!

People interested in the vessels, should contact catering-portal directly. The do business outside ebay to, so you save the ebay fee. Maybe the even ship to US. Smeller, you could consider punching holes and using bolt on fittings.

wow, i'm quite impressed! looking great! (subbed)

Guldberg said:

Yup, they are insulated. Paid 350$ in total for all 3, shipped. Not a bad deal. There is some minor flaws, but for that price I don't care. The insulation was a pain for the welder though.

Click to expand...

What type of insulation is it, fiberglass or poured in poly foam, and what type minor flaws did you find?

Its poly foam moulded between the two layers.

Just minor flaws, like leftover traces of some welding, a tiny tiny dent or stuff like that. For 80€ each, I wouldnt expect them to be perfect in every sense, but function wise, I have nothing to put on them

Did a quick boil test to test to adjust the PID and to see how the heating element performed. Got a major overshoot, couldnt figure out why, until I found out that the I-value was oposite to what I thought. Next time I will try and nail it.

I got a good vigorous boil going. The outside stays cool due to the insulation and the insulated lid helps keeping the energy lost low when ramping up the temperature

Sorry for the phone quality pics

What are the caps over the terminals on your elements? Those are A LOT cleaner looking than the box-ins ive seen on most.

The elements came with waterproof caps on and are threaded. There is a fitting welded to the HLT and kettle. A single o-ring keeps it watertight

Guldberg said:

People interested in the vessels, should contact catering-portal directly.

Click to expand...

how did you contact them outside ebay? and did you just ask for a price, cause I see people are engaging bidding wars on the kettles?

Catering-Portal.Bergland "at" msg.afterbuy.de , there is also a link on the very first post to some sort of shop, where you can see what they can offer

Very nice! The US needs to get something like this. The boilermakers are nice, but quite expensive. I have one of the old italian brew kettles, but I think they stopped selling them because of the shipping costs. Interesting to see how brewing evolves in other countries. Darwin was right!

As far as your schematic and sculpture, you guys clearly know what you're doing....but if you're splitting the beer amongst 6 people, you're gonna have to brew frequently!