Hunter's Basement E-Brewery Build

brewman ! said:

Do you ever wish that your brewery area had a dishwasher in it or close by, ie on the same floor ?

Click to expand...

My friend (sadly 5 hours away) owns a catering business and their basement has stoves, fridges, sinks and a 90 second cycle dishwasher. I am sooo jealous of that and would love to incorporate one into my basement when that day comes.

I didn't even know that such a thing as a 90 second dishwasher existed.

http://www.miele-professional.co.uk/dishwashers/g8072-99/#tab-description

http://www.webstaurantstore.com/cma...ercounter-dishwasher/250UC65E 208*230.html

These things need 240VAC at 25A !

I don't think I could justify a 90 second DW, but what about a straight residential dishwasher ?

I'm thinking at the end of a brew day you could rinse the obvious gunk off "everything" and pop it into the dishwasher, using the sanitary cycle if appropriate and it comes out clean.

Hoses, mash paddle, false bottom, valves. triclamp parts, spoons, dishes, homebrew mugs, yeast beakers, sample jars, keg lids, etc. Just throw it in.

90% of brewing is cleaning and a DW would help with that component ?

I would run my stuff through it without issue. It's generally not that big of a deal. Only thing I run through are bottles...which I rarely bottle but it's handy

Wow a whole bunch of follow-ups.

On the dishwasher front, I don't think we'd see much use of it in the brewery. I actually don't find us dirtying too many items that would actually fit in a standard dishwasher. All of our fermenters are 13gallons, kettles are 15g, and we only usually dirty the mash paddle and grain scoop which take only a few seconds to clean up. Hoses are generally utilized in a way that clear water is the LAST thing to pass through them so they wouldn't go in.

On the topic of kettle size, I would get 20g kettles to facilitate 2 things:

1) Less attention during boil (15g I usually have only an inch from the rim making boilovers a real possibility). Usually we start the boil with 13.5g-14g of wort!
2) Being able to hold more mash/sparge water. With 15g, I have to re-fill the HLT with an additional 5 gal of water after mashing in which slows the herms rebound time to mash temps.

I actually seriously considered adding a plenum, but the HLT and MASH Kettles produce 0 steam under normal circumstances so I don't actually run the fan during most of the process. At the end, when I boil for about 60 minutes, the bk is located right under the intake for the fan and the hood works pretty well. Realistically, your Range Hood should work fine as long as the fan can pull enough CFM to keep up with boil off steam.

I did look at attaching a drainboard afterward, but they didn't look as sturdy and I figured I could fashion something myself. So far, I've been too lazy to do that.

You're definitely right on the 2 degree differential, I have no complaints there. I figured when these hoses are ready for replacing I'll go ahead and upgrade to the thicker material. If you're just getting started, I'd jump to the thicker stuff right off the bat. Not only is it more thermally insulated, it won't kink as easily when running hoses to your pumps!

Generally speaking, having the kegerator in the basement was a decision in hopes that I'd finish the adjacent part of the basement into a man-cave/bar space. Again, I haven't started that yet, but I don't mind walking down stairs to grab a glass.

Here's a good one from last weekend mid-brew to cap off that wall of text!

Hi Hunter. This post was very helpful to me as I set upon building my set up last summer. Thank you so much!

I wanted to pass along something to you, jik you hadn't already thought about it to help remedy the issue of refilling the HLT with an additional 5 gal of water after mashing and how that slows the ramp for the HERMS. I encountered the same issue...but it occured to me after a few brew days, that I can add the additional 5 gal of water needed, but that won't fit into the HLT into the boil kettle. Then pump the water from the BK through the herms coil in the HLT as it is ramping up to mash in temp and return it back to the BK. Once you mash in, you pump the brew kettle water over to the HLT and you have a full HLT at that mash temp you need (you can lower temp through room temp water). I find that there is usually a 10 degree lag in temp HLT vs BK...but they will normalize with time (if you wish).

Disadvantage is that it will take more time to simulataniously heat 20 gallons of water vs 15...which is the same problem you are up against with a 20g HLT.

Cheers!

Did a video of our latest batch from Grain to Fermenter!

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S1Hv0taRcM[/ame]

I tried to watch but couldn't hear jack!

Took it with my action cam and the audio wasn't as good as I would have liked.
Boosted it up, but it still is a bit quiet