Brewery: Cool Box/Hot Box - Update

Temperatures the last two days have exceeded 90 degrees, and the temperatures in my garage, where my beer ferments, have exceeded 85. At night the temperature has been cooling down to the high 60's, but only for a couple hours.

Inside the cool box though, the temperature has only gotten to 73 degrees! The cool floor and the inch of insulation have been doing their part to keep the beer at optimum temperature. It is expected to be cooler tomorrow so this mini heat-wave has passed. During the month of August, when the hot days start to stack up 5-10 days in a row I doubt the temperature will be so cool, but by then I may have a freezer and a temp-controller to keep things cool since I want to start brewing lagers.

Brewery: Cool Box/Hot Box

Beer needs to stay at a specific temperature to ferment. Each variety of yeast has slightly different characteristics, but generally 70 deg. (F) is the ideal temperature for ales.

Last winter, I converted my bench/dog kennel into a warm box by putting a kenwood radiant heater in it and it worked quite well. We had a heat wave a couple weeks ago though, and the temperature inside the box began to climb and eventually reached 75 deg. (F), which is too warm, so I decided to insulate it further.

I went to Home Depot and purchased some R5 styrofoam sheets and cut and taped them into the inside of the box, and now the temperature is maintained throughout the day and it should stay cooler.

Brewery Equipment: Wort Ciller

My brew-partner Brad was not able to join me this last weekend on the Disaster Porter, and I forgot to ask him for his Wort Chiller, so I decided to make my own. Later when we start doing 10 gallon batches, it will be useful to have 2 chillers, one we can put in a bucket of ice, the other in the wort.

I purchased all the components for around $60 at Lowes/Home depot and soldered it up with silver solder. I then cleaned all the flux residue off with a bleach solution (which didn't work) and gasoline (which did work). It sticks well off to the side of the brew keg, and well out of it too.

It didn't leak, and I love that it has a ball-valve on it to control the rate of flow without walking back to the spigot. It took 9 minutes to drop the wort from boiling to 100 degrees (f), then another 6 minutes or so to drop to 80 (f).

Brewery Equipment: Mash/Lauter Tun Insulation

Since our efficiency was so low on the first all-grain brew, I did some research to see how we could improve our efficiency and also how to reduce the sweetness in the finished beer. After reading the How to Brew website, The Complete Joy of Homebrewing book and a couple articles I read on the web, I have decided that on our next brew we will allow the mash to rest at 3 temperatures; 30 min at 122, 20 min at 150 and 15 min at 158.

I would rather not have to apply heat during the rests since it makes the time too busy, and it is hard to keep the mash within a few degrees of the target temperature. I noticed on the Texan Brew site that they insulated some of their kegs so I decided to insulate our mash keg. I found some duct insulation at home depot that is coated with aluminum and rated at 3R. After installing the insulation and taping it up I did an experiment to determine 3 things:

1. Would the insulation burst into flames?
2. Would it keep the water at temperature for 30 minutes?
3. Did the insulation make any difference?

To answer those questions I filled the insulated mash keg and the uninsulated brew keg up with ~3 gallons of water and brought them up to 122 degrees. I kept them both covered, and opened them up every 5 minutes and stirred them with the mash paddle (recommended for step mashes) and then took the water temperature with the following results:

I charted the results after correcting the data to the same start temperature, in the actual experiment the uninsulated keg started 4 degrees higher. Some interesting observations:

1. The temperature rose after removing heat for about 5 minutes then began to drop off.
   
2. The uninsulated keg temperature dropped twice as fast from peak temperature as the insulated keg.
3. The insulated keg was able to maintain temp. to within 3 degrees(F) for 30 minutes.
   
4. The "metallic" tape I purchased melted off the bottom of the insulation, I replaced it with aluminum.

After seeing the tape melt off, I decided to test the insulation to see if it was flammable. It was. I experimented and determined that it would not ignite from the heat of the keg, but it could begin to burn if directly exposed to gases that were hot enough. Flame on the aluminum shield did not cause it to ignite however.

When installing the insulation, I left 1 inch between the bottom of the insulation and the start of the ring surrounding the bottom of the keg so the insulation that was in contact with the keg wasn't going to get hotter than the mash, but the hot gases rushing up the side could ignite the exposed bottom portion. To provide a shield against the gases, I cut some excess insulation into a 3 inch strip and removed the insulation, leaving only the aluminum with some remaining glue. I installed it in place of the melted tape around the bottom of the keg.

Overall I think this will make step-mashing quite a bit easier, and will reduce the use of the propane as well. I will wait to see if it performs well for the next few brews before I insulate the Brew Keg and the HLT though.

Update: Nov, 2009 - I now use this as my brew kettle, and use a 10 gallon rubbermaid cooler as my mash tun. It holds heat much better and holds up to 20 lbs of grist. To increase temperatures in step mashes, I draw off 5 quarts of liquor, bring it to a boil in a 6 quart pot and return it to the mash.

Brewery Equipment: Completed Brewery

On Monday night we planned our first all-grain brew (which I will write about in another post) so I spent Sunday making sure everything was ready to go. I created measuring sticks for the mash/lauter keg, and the brew keg so I could figure out how much water was in them, and I got all the pieces together and tried to figure out how to get the gravity flow working since I don't have a pump (and am about tapped out of cash for a while).

We only have 2 burners, so during sparging we would not be able to heat the brew keg since both burners would either be in use or have full vessels on them. I have a wooden bench and a freezer that I could use to raise the hot liquor tank (HLT) above the brew keg, but neither of them are very mobile and the bench is flammable so that didn't seem like a good choice. I was looking around the garage and spotted my roll away toolbox base and it turned out to be almost the perfect height.

We boosted the mash/lauter keg up 6 inches (although we should have done 8") and it worked quite well.

My heat exchanger also worked well, it raised the temperature of the incoming water from ~50 degrees (F) to ~100 degrees (F), but I couldn't use it to fill the HLT like I planned since I forgot to create a measuring stick for it. So I made the mistake of shutting off the water without removing the hose and it melted the hose and blew a hole in it. My friend Ted noticed the problem before it blew, but it was too late. In the future I will be careful to remove the hose if the water isn't running.

The flow from the HLT to the Mash Keg was perfect, but I needed another 2 inches of drop from the Mask Keg to the Brew Keg. Next time I will add 4 more bricks.

The lack of a 3rd burner isn't that big a problem for 5 gallon batches since the brew kettle comes up to temperature so quickly. If we were doing a 10 gallon batch, we would need to raise everything up another 8 inches or so or, more realistically, get a pump to move wort into the brew keg.

We may also need a larger HLT if we go to 10 gallon batches, since we would need 10 gallons of sparge water and it can only handle 8, but we could also use the burner to maintain the temperature as we add more water during sparge so we may be okay as-is.

I am very happy with the brewery overall and I like that it tears down and fits on my bench so it doesn't take up too much space in my garage.

Brewery Equipment: Brew Keg

The final piece of the puzzle fell into my lap after I met a guy from my church who works for one of the large distributors in the county and told him about my brewery project. He said he has an extra keg I could have for free, so I hustled over and picked it up.

I learned a couple lessons from the first keg:

1. Cut the hole in the top 12" in diameter so you can use a standard pot cover.
2. Don't drill holes in a vessel if you don't truly need them, they are likely to leak.
3. It takes forever to cut into a keg with a dremel tool.

With those lessons in mind, I used a clear pot cover from our kitchen to trace a circle just a bit smaller than the cover onto the top of the keg. I started the cut with a dremel tool just to get a grove going in the top, then switched to a 4 1/2" DeWalt grinder and finished it in about 5 minutes.

I also decided not to drill a valve into the kettle both so I wouldn't have to worry about leaks, and because I would feel safer cranking the heat up since I wouldn't worry about damaging the o-rings or valve.

The brew kettle is awesome, it heats up very quickly, the cover fits almost perfectly and it can handle up to 12 gallons of wort if I ever start doing 10 gallon batches.

Brewery Equipment: Mash/Lauter Tun

After we had completed a couple extract brews, I started looking around for some Kegs. I called Stone Brewery but their warehouse guy was out. I called Bevmo and they suggested I call one of the Distributors in the area. So I called Mesa Distributors and the guy there was very cool and said I could purchase a used Keg for $50. I read on someone's site that the best way to cut a keg open was with a dremel tool and a reinforced cutting disc, both of which I have so I drew a circle on the top of the keg and started cutting. 45 minutes and 7 discs later the top was open.

I ordered a false bottom kit from an online homebrew supply store in Colorado for $75, purchased a 7/8 drill bit from sears for $25, drilled a hole near the bottom and tried it out.

I leaked quite a bit, so I worked the valve a bit more and got the leak down to less than 4 ounces per hour and called it good. I may have someone weld a fixture on at some point in the future.

While I was doing a test run boil, I noticed that the bottom flange was glowing red hot and decided to make a little heat exchanger. I purchased 25ft of copper tubing, soldered a hose fitting on one end and a ball valve spigot on the other and now when I am filling the mash tun or the hot liquor tank while the burner is going it raises the water temperature ~70 degrees, which shortens the time it takes to boil significantly.

I created the sparge coil out of that same copper by sealing one end and drilling 1/16" holes in the bottom. The center of the coil is a bit lower than the edge to encourage the water to travel the entire distance of the coil so I can get an even distribution of water dripping onto the mash while sparging. Because copper is so expensive, the cost of the sparge coil and the heat exchanger with all the fittings came to $110.

I created the mash paddle out of oak since I couldn't find any maple at my local Home Depot and I was too lazy to try to find a hardwood supplier. I drilled 5 2" holes in it with a forstner bit, cut a handle into it with my skilsaw and then rounded it off all the edges with my router.

I picked up the burner from Northern Brewer for $90. The burners I have seen elsewhere don't have a large enough platform for a keg. Hydrowbrew sells a burner table for $150 that would work better, it has 2 heads and is just the right height, but I found that out after I had already purchased this one. It puts out a lot of heat over a large area and brings the heat up quickly.

--Update--
I noticed from my page tracker that this is the most popular page, so I thought I would update it a bit. I cut open another keg for a boil kettle, and found a much faster way to open it. Have a look for some tips.

The heat exchanger was not a good idea. It is too easy to forget to dis-connect the hose during a busy brew, resulting in a blown hose from the expansion caused by the heat. I don't use it any more.

I insulated the keg a couple weeks later with great results.

Finally, I have read elsewhere that some kegs don't have drain holes drilled in the bottom flange. Several people have had the flange explode! So if your flange doesn't have a few small holes in it, drill them or you may have some shrapnel to deal with!

Brewery Equipment: Brewpot/Hot Liquor Tank.

We have been working hard (and spending too much money at homebrew shops and websites) since November, and our brewery is finally complete and capable of brewing 5 gallon all-grain batches.

We purchased the first components back in November. In addition to an advanced homebrew kit, we purchased an 8 gallon brewpot and burner. The pot cost ~$150 from Northern Brewer and the burner was $37 from Home Depot as part of a turkey fryer kit. If I had it to do over I would have purchased a 12-15 gallon pot instead, but I didn't know any better at the time.

It works very well for extract brews, although it will boil over on full-wort boils when the bittering hops are added.

Since it is almost too small for full-wort boils, and is too small for a 12 lb mash when brewing all-grain it serves as our hot liquor tank when we do all-grain brews.