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WOW Marc very cool to hear about the brewday man! Sounds like a monster one, and really fairly painless. What was your time frame from start to clean up?
Great job!

Cheers
Jay
 
Jaybird said:
WOW Marc very cool to hear about the brewday man! Sounds like a monster one, and really fairly painless. What was your time frame from start to clean up?
Great job!

Cheers
Jay
Click to expand...

Thanks Jay, first day start to finish was about 10 hours for a 40 gallon yield. It was slow going as we were making up hoses on the fly and figuring out process while doing it plus a couple of issues with the heat exchanger setup. I'm guessing we can get it down to about that time for an 80 gallon brew day with three guys. What's your plan for the 100 gallon setup? I've seen a few of your kettles at my buddy's place down south.
 
Damn milk takes up all the room in the brewery fridge!

image-1820330560.jpg
 
SavoryChef said:
Just get a bigger fridge
Click to expand...

I was just kidding, I have the cold room. I put a bunch of beer in the wife's veggie fridge and she didn't know if she could fit the milk in....
 
marcb said:
Thanks Jay, first day start to finish was about 10 hours for a 40 gallon yield. It was slow going as we were making up hoses on the fly and figuring out process while doing it plus a couple of issues with the heat exchanger setup. I'm guessing we can get it down to about that time for an 80 gallon brew day with three guys. What's your plan for the 100 gallon setup? I've seen a few of your kettles at my buddy's place down south.
Click to expand...

Were going to shoot for 2.5 BBL per batch and dbl batch the brew day. With the automation I am installing in the system it shouldn't be too labor intensive.
I am guessing 9 hour brew days and planning for that.. But hoping for 7-8.
Were just getting through the drawings stage of the project. I have to install new bathrooms in the brew store so it will pass the city inspection.
Cheers
Jay
 
Carlscan26 said:
What beer is that with the green wax...it wouldn't be a Paere de Bloom from Red Rock would it?
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Nope, Sierra Nevada Estate Ale. The poppy beer is Paardebloem from Red Rock (found it on beer advocate) I've never had it but it looks interesting. Is it good?
 
marcb said:
Nope, Sierra Nevada Estate Ale. The poppy beer is Paardebloem from Red Rock (found it on beer advocate) I've never had it but it looks interesting. Is it good?
Click to expand...

I mean the one with the green wax dip to the right of the milk - there's a beer with a green cap in front of it.

Looks like this bottle and it sounds like you have it. It's made with dandelion greens instead of hops. It's interesting; a very different kind of bitterness but very refreshing. Deceptive in that its a strong but doesn't come across that way IMO. Champagne-like bubbles which I really enjoyed and I think brings another level of uniqueness to the beer.

Good job scoring it - how'd you do that?

image-3232260732.jpg
 
Carlscan26 said:
I mean the one with the green wax dip to the right of the milk - there's a beer with a green cap in front of it.

Looks like this bottle and it sounds like you have it. It's made with dandelion greens instead of hops. It's interesting; a very different kind of bitterness but very refreshing. Deceptive in that its a strong but doesn't come across that way IMO. Champagne-like bubbles which I really enjoyed and I think brings another level of uniqueness to the beer.

Good job scoring it - how'd you do that?
Click to expand...

Damn, wish I had one of those to try now! Sierra's Estate Homegrown Ale uses the barley and hops they grow on the property. It a limited release every year. That's the green top one.

image-694147970.jpg
 
you should try Ovila from Sierra, but then again I was a Chico local for 8 years, so all of it is great.
 
kickflip_mj said:
you should try Ovila from Sierra, but then again I was a Chico local for 8 years, so all of it is great.
Click to expand...

Had one last night! It's a good beer, St. Bernardus ABT 12 is my goto in the Belgian Dark Strong style.... at least when I can't get my hands on a Westvleteran 12!
 
marcb said:
Had one last night! It's a good beer, St. Bernardus ABT 12 is my goto in the Belgian Dark Strong style.... at least when I can't get my hands on a Westvleteran 12!
Click to expand...

Getting ready for a brew day Sunday but these stupid beers keep letting in the way...

image-1648727889.jpg


image-1819503890.jpg
 
Who's gonna be there tomorrow morning? I should bring a westy over if a 375 will stretch...
 
Brewing my Belgian Tripel today, first rest 45 min at 140. Then we're going to kick in the heat exchanger and see how well it works....

image-4032869533.jpg


image-494313345.jpg
 
Carlscan26 said:
So did you add a 5th vessel as a HLT/HEX supply?
Click to expand...

Yes sir. The recirculating line from the tankless had too much pressure so I needed to add a reservoir, since I added the reservoir the hex system works great!
 
All in all a pretty painless brew day! Looks like next month we'll be able to do a full capacity 3BBL brew day!
 
Wow. I just went through this whole thread. Pretty amazing for a guy who wants to make beer out of his house. I wish you the best of luck. Please keep posting on the thread, I would love to see anything new that gets added, or changes that you make.
 
marcb said:
Yes sir. The recirculating line from the tankless had too much pressure so I needed to add a reservoir, since I added the reservoir the hex system works great!
Click to expand...

Cool! Can't his handle two HEX coils at the same time so you can still double batch?
 
Carlscan26 said:
Cool! Can't his handle two HEX coils at the same time so you can still double batch?
Click to expand...

Yep. Although the mash tun only loses about a degree an hour so I doubt I'll need it unless I happen to do two step mash beers at the same time.
 
SteveHeff said:
Wow. I just went through this whole thread. Pretty amazing for a guy who wants to make beer out of his house. I wish you the best of luck. Please keep posting on the thread, I would love to see anything new that gets added, or changes that you make.
Click to expand...

Thanks! Pretty crazy. I would have built this off site but I couldn't get approval from SWMBO. She by the way made breakfast and lunch for all in attendance today including an out of this world brewers club sandwich for lunch!
 
I am curious how the HLT/HEX works exactly. Are you pumping wort from the mash tun through the Renai then to the reservoir then back to the mash tun? Or are you recirculating water in the HLT reservoir through the Renai and using a HERMS in the reservoir to stabilize the mash tun temp?

Or something even more exciting and costly and having lots of stainless ;)
 
Francus said:
I am curious how the HLT/HEX works exactly. Are you pumping wort from the mash tun through the Renai then to the reservoir then back to the mash tun? Or are you recirculating water in the HLT reservoir through the Renai and using a HERMS in the reservoir to stabilize the mash tun temp?

Or something even more exciting and costly and having lots of stainless ;)
Click to expand...

So the initial plan was to create a recirc loop from the rinnai through the two hex counterflow coils and back. There are a couple of drawbacks with this approach, mostly I did not like leaving the rinnai fired up for the duration of the process as it is already running all the time during the sparge process. Fortunately fastev had a 15G eBiaB system that we wasn't using so he brought it over and it has now joined the brewery as the hex reservoir and my starter/test batch brewery. Given that most of the beers that I make are ales with a single mash temp I don't really need to be using two hexs at the same time so this approach works out well. So the process goes, heat the hex reservoir to 190 (water out of the tankless is about 180-182 full throttle) pump through the water side of the stainless hex coils and then have the wort pump from the mashtun through the wort side of the hex coil and back into the top of the tun. These are the Williams stainless counterflow chillers that we are using and work pretty well, you just need to give it a little time to work as the hotter wort returning take a bit of time to raise the temp given the thermal mass of the mash. The wort pump is of course pid controlled by the BCS.
 

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