Shred's (almost) Nil-cost Brewery

[alcoadam]

Nice post Shred, I gotta great laugh as it almost sounded exactly like my story!

I was brewing in Cairns some years back and can relate. I use to shop at the showgrounds there where i was sold lager yeasts in summer and also given advice on where to fill my fermenter up to (which i know now is almost the 25L mark!)

Only good thing to come out of my brewing up there was the garden seemed very happy.

 

[ShredMaster]

Then there's the fementing temperature controller....

NOTE: The towel is "light red", it is not pink. I can fit 1 x 2L Coke bottle and 1 x 1.25L bottle down either side. There is a temperature measurement strip and to access it is easy... First, you remove the towel, unzip the pathetic lid, pull out the bottles and squeeze down the cooler enough to see the strip which is carefully located about 5cm above the tap on the right side of the fermenter. Pure fkn geniousness courtesy of me!

 

[ShredMaster]

Being that my mini-batches are 5L or less, here is my mini-fermenting-fridge-setup....

1L or so of ice per day seems enough to keep this puppy at 15-17c for most of the time. NFI what it gets to max/min, I just know when I come home from work what it reads and that I need to stick more ice in it.... I close my eyes and pretend it's controlled and I like the beer it makes, usually.

 

[ShredMaster]

The Brewery Room (before shots, wait a few months for the after shots)...

From the right...

From the left...

No, I do NOT hoard crap.... As I tell Wifey, this is ALL important, useful, valuable and required. No further discussion!

 

[pk.sax]

I fermented my first and so far only batch up here in a cube in one of those collapsible can coolers from bunnings, frozen bottle + thermi ice gel packs in there and towel on top. Kept it 16-18 for 5-6 days, then I just let it rip 2 weeks in there overall.
If u plan to brew in cubes, grab a cheapie esky from somewhere that an hold a Squarish 25 Ltr cube. That will sort u out short of getting a fermenting fridge.

 

[ShredMaster]

Now, the buckets...

This is how I got them:

And that didn't really make sense to me... Not in the slightest...

So, I worked out I had one of these (this has been lightly washed):

And some of these:

And when paired up, they look like this (note the space available at the bottom where the colour changes):

The inside bucket looks like this, alot of hours spend on this puppy and I don't want to ignore that:

And the holes on the outside (bottom) bucket:

 

[ShredMaster]

The element from CraftBrewer, if you haven't seen it before, a nice tidy piece really.

And how I intend to use it once I work it out, I've made many a piece of hose into an angled water-tight fit in the side of the odd Orchy bottle, it can't be too hard...

 

[ShredMaster]

OHHHhhhhh and this thingy, I forgot to go into detail about that, it's pretty cool....

And my hi-tech thermometer, it's pretty bloody good, just keep it in the red-zone when mashing and it should be ok....

Ok that's enough pics.... Heh...


Cheers,
Shred.

 

[Adam Howard]

Iron 883? I WANT ONE. Good to see the plan finally coming together. Making good beer is pretty cool.

 

[ShredMaster]

Iron 883? I WANT ONE. Good to see the plan finally coming together. Making good beer is pretty cool.

Hahaha! Yes, well spotted...

That was the ecconomical cost of me having to brew nice beer. After refinancing, I worked out that the bike costs me exactly as much as my weekly beer fund, working out how much I drink and how much I can realistically brew, the Harley stays and I learn to brew beer.

There is no alternative.

 

[pyrosx]

I've made many a piece of hose into an angled water-tight fit in the side of the odd Orchy bottle, it can't be too hard...

You're selling yourself short - those right there are damn near "air-tight" fits!
:icon_chickcheers:

 

[flano]

great thread!

is that 30 dgrs on that thermometer at room temp?

 

[ShredMaster]

great thread!

is that 30 dgrs on that thermometer at room temp?

Yeh, that's room temp at 7:30ish in the evening too....

 

[flano]

...and an electric drum kit?

 

[kjparker]

That box with the dial on it looks like a thermostat controller for your element. I'm betting you could run your craftbrewer element through it, to regulate the power somewhat. Could be good for maintaining the boil you want!

 

[ShredMaster]

Yeh I'm pretty sure thats exactly what it is, still I'd better open it up and check what it is just in case...

@beernorks yeh and that big room thingy there is meant to be a soundproof recording booth, just gotta work out where the roof went and put the door back on... I'm gonna be moving a heap of crap around in there over the next couple of weeks to fit my brewery in properly.

 

[crozdog]

good to see the "bucket in bucket" and "bucket of death" making a comeback!

top stuff

 

[warra48]

After just coming home from morning tea with a geriatric Father-in-Law, and his two geriatric sisters, it was a pleasure to read this thread.

Well done. Keep up the good work!

 

[ShredMaster]

Well I made the big hole a little bigger (heh) and was able to fit the element through it with just some minor swearing however it was letting some drops of water through, mind you it was only hand tightened.

Went to a Purveyor of Fine Tools this morning and picked up a $12 pair of multi-grips, hoping to see if I can make it watertight this evening and give it a test boil to see if I'll melt through this bucket.

I'm madly following the other few threads about "Bucket Brewing" and associated pitfalls and ideas. My system is obviously quite old so it will be cool to watch how other people tweak theirs during the design phase whereas I get all the joys (read: hassle) of adapting my system to how I think it will work. FUN! FUN! FUN!

Cheers for the feedback, it's actually making me put some effort into this thing and get up and running as soon as possible. Just sweating on finding a decent fermenting fridge and it will be complete(ish)!

Cheers,
Shred.

 

[Dazza88]

Hope ya got a real good scrubbing arm for those buckets and coil.