My tiny homebrewers electric build.

[Paps]

Just for $hips n giggles i'll be posting some pics and info about a small electric homebrewers area/set up.
Being that it is not just the brewery & i'm not a millionaire means it could be a very slow build. I will post pics along the way, give info on what equipment i used and provide prices/links to them if anyone so chooses to do something similar.

About a year ago i returned to my property in Arkansas to discover squaters pretty much destroyed my house,the local police did nothing to help the situation and my insurance would not cover anything. I have a 14 x 28 foot foundation for a secondary building that had burned down years before me purchasing the property so i decided to start with it to rebuild a place to sleep at night and to brew beer in. This is where the story begins.

 

[Paps]

Reserved for later editing to add pics.

 

[Paps]

Onto some of the brew gear.

Starting out with some of the kettles.
2 stainless 100-quart kettels for the HLT & mash tun (these ran me $130 each)
1 stainless 180-quart kettle for the BK ($200)
3 PID controllers from Aubers ($50ish each)

pics/links to be added later.

 

[brettwasbtd]

Sorry to hear about the squatter situation! Looking forward to the beer

 

[Rivenin]

in!

 

[Paps]

It's been a while and i've not had much luck getting my crappy phone to take pictures.(everything comes out WAY too dark)
Anyways i've gotten some "stilldragon" controllers and heating elements installed. A trip to lowes tomorrow for a few ball valves and i might actually to be able to brew beer on this set up. No pumps as of yet and i'll be re-using the braid out of my cooler M.T. (along with the factory steamer/false bottom that came with the cooker)
I have about 20-lbs of Marris Otter and several bags of specialty malts so i'm thinking a 10-gallon batch to start with and if all goes well, ramp up batch size from there.

 

[Paps]

Finished off a batch of IPA to break her in today.
Was definately interesting brew session.
Not having a rims/herms set up led to what was a luckily avoided disater.
Draining from the valve of the HLT is SLOW and the strike water lost some 30 odd degrees so i busted out the propane burner and brought 2 more gallons of water to a boil which got the temp back up to mid-high 40's (good enough + i let it sit longer than normal)
Had the sparge water pre-heated and shot for an extra 20-30 degrees higher to compensate, drained that water in while collecting the 1rst runnings (did this for times sake) found out how hard i could run the 2 elements in the BK without blowing the breaker and hopefully this will make good beer!!!

I think i definately need to get some pumps/tubing before doing a max capacity batch in this thing (and a larger/more fernebtors)

 

[Paps]

O.G. was 1.061
two 5 gal ale pails filled and fermented
haven't checked F.G. yet, maybe tomorrow but i've nothing to rack these things to yet for a dry hopping, might just dry hop in primary.
Anyone have a suggestion for an `easy to use` pic hosting site so i can get some pics up here?

 

[Paps]

sorry it took so long...here are some photos.

 

[Paps]

moar pics