Small home brewery

[chefgage]

After attending a beer brewing course at Tideswell school of cookery last summer I then decided to build my own small all grain brewery capable of making up to about 20-30 litres of beer at a time. It has taken me a while to save up some money but I have finally got all the bits I need and have started putting it all together.

The finished product will be a hot liquer tank, a mash tun, a copper and an control box.
I have attached the work in progress if anybodys interested.

I have used stainless throughout the set up.

The first picture is the stockpot with a hole punched in it.
The second picture is one of the stockpots I am using.
The third picture is the hot liquer tank showing the heating element, sight glass and outlet valve.

Not sure why the pictures are the wrong way round!

[snakeshack]

Looks very professional , I brew from kits/extract but do "tweak" them also grow my own hops for dry hopping at the barrelling stage, fresh green hops give an amazingly fresh clean flavour

[bearded bloke]

Can I get the official taster job please

[chefgage]

Can I get the official taster job please

Seeing as you have righted the pictures you might well get the job

[chefgage]

Looks very professional , I brew from kits/extract but do "tweak" them also grow my own hops for dry hopping at the barrelling stage, fresh green hops give an amazingly fresh clean flavour

I think one of my plans for next year is to try and grow my own hops. Just got a few more bits to sort electrical/electronic wise and im ready for brewing. The pictures show the hot liquer tank. I have already got the copper and the mash tun sorted using two other stainless stock pots.

[Bill HH]

I think "GYO special brew" would be a good name for you first batch, maybe the magazine will buy all your output and give a free bottle with every Mag!.

[chefgage]

I think "GYO special brew" would be a good name for you first batch, maybe the magazine will buy all your output and give a free bottle with every Mag!.

Now there's an idea

[bearded bloke]

Seeing as you have righted the pictures you might well get the job

If I got the job,the pictures would need to be sideways to make sense hic

Good luck with the project,please keep us up to date

[chefgage]

Another picture. This ones the inside of the mash tun showing the domed bottom to strain the grain. The pt100 temperature probe has yet to be fitted.

[chefgage]

Picture of the heating element inside the hot liquer tank. Depending on the test results I might need 2.

[simon12]

I am looking to get a similar set up myself shortly after I do a 1 day course on the 5th of July. How much did you spend on this? And if you don't mind can you list everything you bought. Good luck with it anyway.

[chefgage]

I am looking to get a similar set up myself shortly after I do a 1 day course on the 5th of July. How much did you spend on this? And if you don't mind can you list everything you bought. Good luck with it anyway.

Yep no problems I can do that. Not sure how much I have spent (although it a fair bit im sure). Where abouts are you doing the course?

I will post up a list later on this evening with prices of each item and where I got them from if you want. When I get round to it (which hopefully should be shortly) I am going to post a guide to the steps I have done to create this small brewery on my website which you can then see for yourself each step I took.

[chefgage]

Right I have just added up what i have spent so far and it comes to £660

The list of components is as follows.

this list is all the components for the hot liquer tank, the mash tun, the copper/boil kettle and the control box. There is about £50 postage altogether hence the £660. Although some of the prices have changed since i bought them, but not by much.

Stock pots 50l x 3 @ £60.50 each from AHB
Chiller coil x 1 @ £34 from ebay
Domed false bottom x 1 @ £42.79 from AHB
Stainless 1/2" valves x 5 @ £26.18 each from AHB
Hop strainer x 1 @ £8.36 from AHB
Thermal wrap @ £12.99 from screwfix
1/2" tubing for all stockpots and valves x 4M @ 18.48 for 4M from AHB
Quick release fittings for valves x 3 @ £11.66 each from AHB
Sight glass for hot liquer tank including fittings, brush and sticker @ £41.27 from AHB
Q max 21mm hole punch x 1 @ £12 from AHB
Q max 40mm hole punch x 1 @ £19.64 from AHB
PID controller x 2 @ £8.91 each from ebay
Solid state relay x 1 @ £3.99 from ebay
PT100 temperature probe x 2 @ £20 each from HBB
Heat sink for solid state relay x 1 @ £1.80 from ebay
Kettle element x 1 @ £12.99 from ebay
Kettle plug/lead x 1 @ £8 from AHB

AHB = Angel homebrew
HBB = Home brew builder

There are a few items I already had such as a lock nut for the element ( definetly recomended instead of relying on the plastic supplied shroud)
Also the control box to control the element using the PID controllers I already had a box and associated cables and connectors etc..

How it all goes together is a whole different story which I am currently writing for my website. Need to check if I am allowed to post a link to my website here???

[simon12]

Thanks for the list, this is the course I am doing All Grain Mashing Course, Mash, Sparge, Boil, Chill at the moment I can't picture the mashing process that well so I don't know what I will buy until I have done the course. I have only done 1 kit beer (not finished yet), 1 barrel of cider from apple juice, 4 kit wines and a few experimental wines.

[chefgage]

Sounds like the course I did. I went there not really knowing anything about all grain as i had only done a couple of kits before. I came away with all sorts of ideas in my head as to how i was going to go about it. The mashing sounded complicated but when we had had a go at it, it seemed more straight forward.