Washing Mash-ine

Walking home today, I noticed a toploader washing machine that someone had left out for the garbage people to collect. It's been there a few days. As one does in this hobby I thought "I wonder if I could use that to brew".

I looked inside to see if there was stainless steel or, I don't know, if the holy spirit would descend upon me and say "Lo! drag it home, that'll be great for brewing in"

Now, I've never been much of a DIYer, more a pale, wan aesthete leafing through a slim volume of experimental poetry, who has to call an electrician if a fuse blows. I've got much better since brewing but I know my limitations. I pretty much have to follow detailed instructions, so I came home and googled the idea.

This came up.

Homepage von Michael Fey, Duisburg

Bier

My german aint great, but I'll see if I can make any sense of it. If I have to mess with electric wires or computers, that machine is staying at the side of the road and I'm sticking with my stockpots.

It's all greek to me.

But it's a natty idea, you must admit.

I've been struggling through the HTML downloads on his site, if only it were a separate page, google would've done the hard work for me. It would appear that a washing machine is a perforated drum within a stainless steel drum heated by water heating elements. At $0 it's quite a bit cheaper than High Gravity's electric keggle.

There appears to be some messing about with the electrics, so I'm going to have to let this one go, but I really like the idea.

IIRC there a translation of the page floating around the interwebz...we have had a thread on this topic, I think around christmas....you might want to do a search.

I know I've seen that page and am pretty sure I have seen it in english...

Just use Yahoo's Babal Fish webpage translator. Yahoo! Babel Fish - Text Translation and Web Page Translation

Christmas you say, Revvy? Thanks I'll have a look. To tell you the truth, I searched this forum for about 20 minutes before posting. My experience is, if someone somewhere in the world has brewed something interesting, chances are, it's been discussed on this forum.

I search this forum in three ways: hit the section and trawl backwards, type something into google and look for HBT to come up. If I'm desperate, I use the forum's search function. The first two tend to be quicker and more reliable.

you could always just ask the resident American bi-linguist electrician who happens to have German as his second language.....

Original text with my translation after it:

Mann besorge sich einfach einen gebrauchten Toplader aus den gängigen Inserats - Zeitungen und baut dann die Waschmaschine zur Hausbrau - Anlage um. Wie das geht, erkläre ich später ! Natürlich steht die Sauberkeit und die Sicherheit immer im Vordergrund.
The first thing you need to do is to find yourself a top-loading washing machine out of any local paper inserts (want ads), and then turn the washing machine into a home brewing system. How this works I'll explain later. Naturally the cleanliness and safety of the system is first and foremost.

Bier brauen ist leichter als man glaubt. Wenn man die Rezepte genau befolgt, erhält man ein super Bier, was sich ganz wesentlich in der Qualität von den Industrie - Bieren unterscheidet.

Brewing beer is a lot easier that most people believe. If you follow the recipe exactly, you can brew a super beer that most definitely places itself well above the industrially brewed beers as far as quality goes.


Original text with Altavista.com/babelfish translation:

Mann besorge sich einfach einen gebrauchten Toplader aus den gängigen Inserats - Zeitungen und baut dann die Waschmaschine zur Hausbrau - Anlage um. Wie das geht, erkläre ich später ! Natürlich steht die Sauberkeit und die Sicherheit immer im Vordergrund.

Man procures himself simply a used Toplader from usual advertisement - newspapers and then the washing machine builds to house-brews - the plant over. How goes, I explain later! Naturally cleanliness and security are the center of attention always.

Bier brauen ist leichter als man glaubt. Wenn man die Rezepte genau befolgt, erhält man ein super Bier, was sich ganz wesentlich in der Qualität von den Industrie - Bieren unterscheidet.

Beer brew is more easily than one believes. If one obeys the prescriptions exactly, one receives a super beer, which itself completely substantially in the quality of the industry - beers differentiates.


......you decide if I can translate it for you or not

(this post is in response to a PM I received about my arrogance...thank you)

BH

I have seen that before. You'll need a top loader washing mashine that can heat water. Problem us that they are unavailabe or not common in the US.

Kai

Another option would be to convert it to a cider press to do your own cider (and mass quanities of apfelwein)

THE MAYTAG CIDER PRESS

Revvy said:

Another option would be to convert it to a cider press to do your own cider (and mass quanities of apfelwein)

THE MAYTAG CIDER PRESS

Click to expand...

That brings back memories. There is nothing like a large glass of cider to accompany Thanksgiving Dinner, except for maybe a homebrewed beer.

Want another option? On a recent camping trip there was a guy there who took the tub out of an old top loading washer. He bolted on some legs and used it as a portable fire pit. It worked great! All of those little holes let in plenty of air and let out plenty of heat. Plus, the fire light shinning out of the holes at night was very cool.

Beats the hell out of paying $205 plus shipping for one of these:

Brau_Haus said:

(this post is in response to a PM I received about my arrogance...thank you)

BH

Click to expand...

Why? What did you do?

Thanks for the offer to translate. That's very kind. I've managed to stumble through it myself. My German aint great, but it's good enough to realize that these are not comprehensive instruction, more reflections. There's a whole load of gumpf about a computer programme. I assumed he must be doing a stepped mash. I'd like to use the thing as a boil kettle. There's something in there that says there are electrical heating elements. I don't think I'll bother though. I'm not much of a handy man but it is intriguing.

I have seen that before. You'll need a top loader washing mashine that can heat water. Problem us that they are unavailabe or not common in the US.

Click to expand...

Kaiser, they are pretty common up here in the frozen north. So common in fact that people are throwing them on to the side of the road. Which is what sparked my train of thought in the first place - "Free washing machine, or boil kettle".

Actually, now that I think about it, I don't believe I've seen a front loading washing machine in Canada apart from in Laundromats.

Still looking through the archives for the previous discussion on this topic.

Okay, didn't find it. Not too worried though, my enthusiasm for a washing machine brewery is flagging. The machine is still there though and likely to be there for a while. The refuse collectors are going on strike.

I did find this spiffy thread about etching your carboy

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/marking-your-carboy-63174/

Magic!!