Don Burke's New Brewery

[Golani51]

Looking at his username, he may or may not have had a long-running gardening show on the telly.

If that is the case, I'm sure money's not an issue.

Plus, how awesome would it be to have another well know Aussie personality homebrewing. Just adds credibility to our craft.

It isn't the same. Hobbies are Homebrewing, photography, motorcycles. Where is the bloody gardening???

Anyway, it is not about the money. How many hobbies are that much cheaper?

 

[donburke]

OK. Bet a stuck recirculation first go.

what are you willing to bet ? i'll take on your bet

PS: If you are referring to corrosion due to chlorine on stainless, sure the tubing will last 20 years before it is corroded "all the way though". Pitting of the stainless will happen almost immediately. Great place for spoilage organisms to hide.

who said anything about chlorine ? sodium percarbonate and sodium metasilicate are not chlorine

Pitting of the stainless will happen almost immediately. Great place for spoilage organisms to hide.

more than half the people on this site use napisan and pbw on their stainless steel kegs, some of them even soak them in it for days, gone fishing, in the interest of all these people i suggest you start a new post and tell them to throw their kegs out because they are pitted

 

[donburke]

The pots look like "cooking grade" to me. I presume that the chlorine-based cleaners are going to applied on a "fill" basis?
gf

they are cooking grade, thats what i'm doing with them, but i'm not using chlorine based cleaners

 

[Greg.L]

Hey Donburke, good setup, I like your money-saving justification, don't forget all the CO2 emissions you'r saving by brewing at home.
I just wanted to suggest the best way to clean/sterilise your pipework is just to recirculate hot water, near boiling, for 1/2 hour. This will kill any germs likely to be a bother in beer and won't damage your pipes or get any sanitiser residue in your brew.

Greg.

 

[matho]

View attachment PBWTech2.pdf here is the tech sheet on PBW as it says its safe to use on stainless steel and other soft metals.
So don you dont have anything to worry about

cheers matho

 

[donburke]

Hey Donburke, good setup, I like your money-saving justification, don't forget all the CO2 emissions you'r saving by brewing at home.
I just wanted to suggest the best way to clean/sterilise your pipework is just to recirculate hot water, near boiling, for 1/2 hour. This will kill any germs likely to be a bother in beer and won't damage your pipes or get any sanitiser residue in your brew.

Greg.

thanks greg,

i've run a brew through the system, using my rambo burner as the mongolians arent yet plumbed,

the last 15 minutes of the boil was recirculating the wort through the march pump and it didnt block, in fact, it creater a finer filter with hop particles lining the outside of the hopscreen and in my cube went the the clearest wort i had ever seen

cleanup was very easy, and your right, water is the universal solvent, especially when hot

as far as sanitation is concerned, the internal of the pipe is used during mash, the exterior will then be in contact with the boiling wort for at least an hour, as you said, not much life can survive extended period of boiling

 

[donburke]

View attachment 45054 here is the tech sheet on PBW as it says its safe to use on stainless steel and other soft metals.
So don you dont have anything to worry about

cheers matho

drats, i was hoping 'gone_fishing' was going to convince everyone to throw out their kegs and i would have had a field day next council cleanup

thanks matho, :icon_cheers:

my undestanding of pbw is that it has a buffering agent in it to keep the ph in check, to neutralise the alkalinity of the sodium metasilicate, thus it being safe on soft metals

 

[[email protected]]

I wouldn't worry to much about gone_fishing, he sounds a bit jealous to me. Congrats on an awesome system.


Not to mention any nasties developing inside the coil won't be a problem because wort going through them will be boiled for over an hour, and wort on the outside boiling for an hour will sanitize the coil better then you're best cleaning stuff. You could have the worst of the worst bugs growing on it and it wont infect your beer.

 

[Greg.L]

Also when you use the coil to cool it will get a really good rinse with hot water, I wouldn't use any sanitiser at all in the coil because there really isn't any point, it will actually be cleaner if you don't sanitise.

 

[[email protected]]

Also when you use the coil to cool it will get a really good rinse with hot water, I wouldn't use any sanitiser at all in the coil because there really isn't any point, it will actually be cleaner if you don't sanitise.

Only the outlet side. The inlet side water will still be cold. Perhaps while boiling the wort, run a few litres of hot water through the coil to rince the wort out at boiling temperatures.

 

[bonj]

Oh so shiny.... That's brew porn right there!

 

[kevin_smevin]

OK. Bet a stuck recirculation first go.
GF

PS: If you are referring to corrosion due to chlorine on stainless, sure the tubing will last 20 years before it is corroded "all the way though". Pitting of the stainless will happen almost immediately. Great place for spoilage organisms to hide.

I whirlpool via a march pump and a beerbelly hopscreen every brew with pallet hops. Never got stuck

 

[Jazzafish]

Nice Rig,

It is similar to mine, only I have a copper coil and have not fixed it into a vessel. Also none of my plumbing is fixed. This is largely because I cannot weld or cut in a straight line, but also because it gives me flexibility.

Your brewery looks pretty and will work the way you want it. A few nay sayers have given you a heads up of potential issues to be wary of, cleaning is probably the most valid out of what I skimmed through. Personally I use caustic on my stainless steel, an overnight soak and a soft wipe will clean it all quite well. Napisan and PBW works too, but in the interest of a happy wife/happy life, steer clear of taking the wife's napisan.

One thing I have noticed on my system that you may need to nut out:
The HX/Wort Chiller in a large vessel like that will be a more efficient at chilling wort than heating a mash. Well on my system anyway. Heat stick and gas burner required for 1 degree a minute mash heating.

 

[donburke]

Nice Rig,

It is similar to mine, only I have a copper coil and have not fixed it into a vessel. Also none of my plumbing is fixed. This is largely because I cannot weld or cut in a straight line, but also because it gives me flexibility.

Your brewery looks pretty and will work the way you want it. A few nay sayers have given you a heads up of potential issues to be wary of, cleaning is probably the most valid out of what I skimmed through. Personally I use caustic on my stainless steel, an overnight soak and a soft wipe will clean it all quite well. Napisan and PBW works too, but in the interest of a happy wife/happy life, steer clear of taking the wife's napisan.

One thing I have noticed on my system that you may need to nut out:
The HX/Wort Chiller in a large vessel like that will be a more efficient at chilling wort than heating a mash. Well on my system anyway. Heat stick and gas burner required for 1 degree a minute mash heating.

jazzafish,

i tested the cooling power of the coil today, 85 litres of boiling water, 22 degree tap water, went like this;

time temp
0:00 99
0:03 87
0:07 79
0:09 74
0:12 68
0:19 57
0:24 51
0:29 46
0:37 40
0:45 35
1:00 30

flow rate of tap water was about 4 litres/min exiting the coil and the march pump was recirulating the hot water the whole time

i hit diminishing returns after about half an hour, i will look at making an ice bath and getting myself a submersible pump to take over from the 40 degree mark

the heating side is yet to be tested, what did you mean by 'Heat stick and gas burner required for 1 degree a minute mash heating'?

 

[gone_fishing]

Hey Don,
Great specs cooling water. Hope the same goes with cooling trub and hop filled wort. Not sure where your return for cooling recirc is situated? Are you pumping wort through the "system" as well as sparge water and "processed wort" to the fermentation vessel? If so you probably should invest in a pressure cleaner to clean the undersides of that very lovely looking coil in your boiler of wort. After all, cleanliness at the final stages of the brewing process is paramount. Just trying to help you and other brewers who are trying to move away from cans of "wort"
cheers GF

PS: Not jealous of what you have done. Rig looks fantastic. Just not sure how practicle it is for producing good quality liquid of malt for fermentation purposes :beer:

 

[donburke]

some more progress, the brewery is probably 95% done now, just need the 2nd pump and then i'm done

gave it a whirl today, knocked out 50 litres of 1.075 winter warmer, all went well

my burners sit with an 80mm gap between base of kettle and tip of jet, this worked much better than the 110m i had them at before

the 32 jet under the HLT is a beast, very quick to heat the mash and sparge water

the 23 jet under the kettle worked well to keep the rolling boil without having to turn it down too much, so it didnt soot

the regulator has heaps of flow so all burners can be going at once without any change in output


GAS PLUMBING COMPLETED



32 JET MONGOLIAN FOR THE HLT



GAS BALL VALVES



23 JET MONGOLIAN FOR THE KETTLE


400Mj 2.75kPa REGULATOR

 

[razz]

Nice job DB, very pro. :super: I'm sure it was worth the wait, now just get stuck into the brewing.

 

[unrealeous]

some more progress, the brewery is probably 95% done now, just need the 2nd pump and then i'm done

What's the second pump used for?

Anyway - Rig looks awesome - you've kicked a serious goal.

 

[Punkal]

Looks very nice... Very clean looking design and simple compared to some other designs on the net...

Looking at building a 3v system myself my be going through this thread again to borrow some ideas...

 

[donburke]

Nice job DB, very pro. :super: I'm sure it was worth the wait, now just get stuck into the brewing.

thank razz

pity we are coming into winter, and consumption slows, but at least i would have ironed out any bugs before peak season next summer,