I decided to start building a brewing system

[Guldberg]

Its good to see some european builds. Sometimes we are dealing with different kinds of problems. Low rated fuse groups i.e.

I live in Copenhagen. But I have a vacation house in Hassleholm. The brewery looked like its worth a visit, if it only were closer

 

[DrKarma]

Well Hässleholm isn't that far from me. So if you are here later this year then let me know and we could do a brew. Will however try to tile the brewery during winter so it might be out of service for a couple of weeks.

 

[DrKarma]

Today since the weather was not the best I decided to spend some time in the brewery working with the equipment.

Have seen so many shiny stainless creations on here, and since I don't have that much stainless in my system, the biggest piece I have got pimped.

Here is a "before" shot (boiler to the right)

And this is the "after" shot.

I wet sanded the boiler and after that I used Autosol compound.

I discovered how boring this process was so I will stick with the finish I got now, I could have continued to make it shine more, but as this is something that will not impact the wort production, I don't see it worth the effort.

 

[Layne]

Lookin' good!

 

[Tiber_Brew]

I'm thoroughly impressed! Well done! Looking forward to any updates.

TB

 

[DrKarma]

As I only have 5 operational kegs, I sometimes need to bottle beer to free up kegs. But cleaning bottles I find quite boring.
So I decided to put together a cheap, ugly dish washer for bottles last Sunday.

The principle is simple and I have seen it done by others on different forums as well so it's nothing that I can take full credit for, but regardless - this is how it works.

I connect a pump between the outlet (bottom of the box) and the inlet (copper pipes top right).
Then put bottles on top of the vertical pipes (5 of them in my construction) and let each bottle sit there for a couple of minutes while circulating a cleaner such as PBW.

Then the bottle/botles is moved to dry in the construction below (just some drilled holes)

I can't claim that washing of bottles now have become fun...but I at least got to build something new out of parts that I already had.

 

[Guldberg]

Oh no. Another thing I have to built for my brewery. Nice build though.

You seams to drink a lot of Carls juding by the labels and the box. Whats wrong with Blå Pripps and Elk brew

 

[DrKarma]

Well actually I don't drink that much Carls...but as I passed through Denmark one day I decided to get a couple of cases as I could re-use the bottles.

 

[DrKarma]

This is the latest addition to the brewery...or well the lab part of the brewery.

A magnetic stir plate.

I was going to make a LM350 based regulator using a schematics like this:

But since I had a RPM regulator that I didn't use for my PC I picked that one instead. So it was a very quick build. The regulator is externally mounted on the box. That's the black box attached to the stir plate.

The interior looks like this.

I used neodym magnets for the build.

On the back is where you connect a DC plug.

 

[DrKarma]

Couldn't find my stir bars so I threw in a stack of neodym magnets instead (which is not optimal since those magnets are quite strong and slows down the fan).
But I was eager to see it in operation so here we go.

 

[DrKarma]

Hop leafs and grain husks tend to find its way to places in the pump house where you don't want them to be or get stuck.
That was something that I noticed after inspecting my pumps and cleaning the pump houses a few months back.

Even after cleaning with CIP:s like PBW that I let re-circulate for well over an hour, I could find traces of husks in the pump houses.
So I decided to build a pump filter that would take care of these particles.

It is not a pretty thing, but I built it with stuff that I had laying around in the garage and of course a glass can that previously held pickled beetroot.

What is not seen in the picture is a fine mesh that is inside the bigger stainless perforated cylinder. Thus bigger parts are separated outside the cylinder and smaller parts by the fine mesh.

The hose from the MLT goes to the rightmost connector on the lid and the hose to the pump goes from the connector to the left on the T connector.

The valve is there to initially let wort flow from the MLT to the can, and when desired level is reached it is closed and the pump is started.

 

[DrKarma]

Post brewing and pre cleaning pics from my brewery.

 

[birvine]

Talk about ingenuity at every stage. All kinds of ideas for my own setup.

Thanks for posting!

Brent

 

[ryanhope]

Hop leafs and grain husks tend to find its way to places in the pump house where you don't want them to be or get stuck.
That was something that I noticed after inspecting my pumps and cleaning the pump houses a few months back.

Even after cleaning with CIP:s like PBW that I let re-circulate for well over an hour, I could find traces of husks in the pump houses.
So I decided to build a pump filter that would take care of these particles.

It is not a pretty thing, but I built it with stuff that I had laying around in the garage and of course a glass can that previously held pickled beetroot.

What is not seen in the picture is a fine mesh that is inside the bigger stainless perforated cylinder. Thus bigger parts are separated outside the cylinder and smaller parts by the fine mesh.

The hose from the MLT goes to the rightmost connector on the lid and the hose to the pump goes from the connector to the left on the T connector.

The valve is there to initially let wort flow from the MLT to the can, and when desired level is reached it is closed and the pump is started.

Such a great idea here. I am going to have to make one my self. Probably with a plastic container of some sort.

 

[DrKarma]

Such a great idea here. I am going to have to make one my self. Probably with a plastic container of some sort.

It has served me well.
If you go for plastic, get a transparent type as much of the joy is to see wort clarity when using a recirculating system like RIMS or HERMS.

 

[DrKarma]

Going bigger and stainless.

A lot of things happened during the last years. For one, I together with a friend has started a commercial brewery in Sweden. There we brew quite big batches (4000 liter fermentors 1000+ US Gallon)

My old system has served us well for creating prototypes, but now we are building a new prototype setup 250 liters/66 US Gallons.
It will be a mobile system, so we can bring it with us when going to beer festivals etc and brew live.

Thought that I could show some pictures as we are getting closer to getting it finalized.

Notice piping board to be able to divert flows whatever way we want them in the system.


This time around we are making a RIMS setup.
RIMS heater you can see in position on the following pic (left)

Two pumps.

 

[SHvanBommel]

i've been following this thread since the beginning! Glad to see all is well! Good Luck and what's the name of your brewery?

 

[DrKarma]

Pretty much done with the welding now. Time to get the welds clean and then mount the electronics.


SHvanBommel It's called "Brygghus 19" (brewhouse 19)

 

[1975brewer]

Found your thread today after your latest post. I'm home with a man cold so had time to read all the way through. The materials used & the time frame you got it done in were inspiring. If I had seen this build a couple of years ago I would have been more inclined to attempt my own build instead of buying 1 already made.
If you have time at some point I for 1 would like to hear a bit about the process of opening a brewery in Sweden.

 

[DrKarma]

The pilot system arrived to the brewery today.

 

[brewman !]

I love how you have laid out your pilot system. Could you share with us a piping schematic and an explanation of what we are looking at and how you use it ?