44gal SS Drums

[droid]

I think many breweries go for what they can afford and what they know. How many would do the same again? who knows . Obviously they work around it and tune things. I know at Sailors Grave it is single infusion as is the Bullant. Both brewhouses have to guesstimate a little even now with temperatures of tuns, water and grain. I don't think it's ideal. Watching someone holding a big arse temp sensor under the spray ball in the mash tun and tuning with the taps to try and work out overall mash temp is an interesting spectacle for sure.This is more relevant to the early stages of setting up and tuning.

There was a guy from Barcelona working with us and he has travelled extensively working in different breweries around the world. I asked him what his choice in a brewery set-up would be regarding mashing. His response was an oil-jacketed mash tun. It's cheap, more effective thermally than water and as you can imagine you have complete flexibility.

The issue with oil would be portability where I guess you could drain your water out for transport - if case swaps were part of the equation.

Thanks to everyone involved in the conversation so far - such great fun to chat about...and imho the most important part of the brewhouse by a mile.

The 44g drums didn't work out as they were painted on the inside...

 

[droid]

this info is relevant (the mashing and recirc part) to the case-swap ongoing thread so please post there too or link to here if poss

 

[malt junkie]

I think many breweries go for what they can afford and what they know. How many would do the same again? who knows . Obviously they work around it and tune things. I know at Sailors Grave it is single infusion as is the Bullant. Both brewhouses have to guesstimate a little even now with temperatures of tuns, water and grain. I don't think it's ideal. Watching someone holding a big arse temp sensor under the spray ball in the mash tun and tuning with the taps to try and work out overall mash temp is an interesting spectacle for sure.This is more relevant to the early stages of setting up and tuning.

There was a guy from Barcelona working with us and he has travelled extensively working in different breweries around the world. I asked him what his choice in a brewery set-up would be regarding mashing. His response was an oil-jacketed mash tun. It's cheap, more effective thermally than water and as you can imagine you have complete flexibility.

The issue with oil would be portability where I guess you could drain your water out for transport - if case swaps were part of the equation.

Thanks to everyone involved in the conversation so far - such great fun to chat about...and imho the most important part of the brewhouse by a mile.

The 44g drums didn't work out as they were painted on the inside...

oh well!
Bakers have to do similar calculations when they dough in, obviously they need accurate dough temp or their bread won't rise or they'll kill their yeast, we used to be able to dead nail dough temp, and you'd use differing temps from one dough to the next say your first two would be quite warm so they would prove quicker, third would be a little cooler and slower to prove (oven availability) the math was simple and usually very accurate. Now if I could just remember the formula from 30 years ago!