Shred's (almost) Nil-cost Brewery

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ShredMaster

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Well I'm almost there... But first, a little back story to put this in perspective....

I started (several years ago) with the gift of a standard Brigalow starter kit (fermenter, hydro etc etc) and learned how to make pretty awful tasting alcoholic mop water. Leaving it in the bottles for a couple of months made it somewhat drinkable but I only found that out by giving up brewing and stumbling across a box of forgotten bottled beer a few months later (funnily enough, I remember opening a couple of bottles after the standard 1 month of being bottled and remembering how foul they tasted and moving the box elsewhere in the garage so I wouldn't get that crap mixed up with my other crap). Must have been 4 months or so since being bottled and, like I said, it was drinkable, that is all.

Again, a bunch of months or so go past and I found myself staring at all these empty bottles and fermenting gear thinking that I really needed to conquer this beast, it can't be that hard, really... But this time I was smarter than the average bear - I had to start buying better ingredients because, as the saying goes: you put shit in then you get shit out. So there I was, spending top dollar at Big W rather than Woolies and getting all the good stuff like dextrose, the occasional box of "Brew Enhancer" (for "enhanced" brews, of course). I even bought better yeast, yes, the Coopers stuff hanging on the shelf on a hook, 2 packets for each tin of quality ingredients. Yeh, the beers still tasted pretty damn bad. It didn't take long before I realised there must be something I'm missing but still, the effort outweighed the benefits so my gear was again stored.

Then we moved house many months later and I came across all my brewing gear which Wifey was in the middle of taking towards the skip bin on the lawn. After some "negotiations" I managed to rescue it all and move it to the new place with the new rule: if it is still unused or stored when we move again, it's in the bin for good!! Hrm... Cranked up the whole process again over the following month, buying even BETTER ingredients like the Toohey's tins and Cascade lager. I even went to the internet to find out how to improve my beer-making skillz but I kept finding all these American pages talking about "kettles" and "mashing" and "burning the kitchen bench" and very little about using kits at all, or even fermenting. This was early 2000's and I didn't really bother looking too deeply, these "brewers" were obviously doing far more than what I was prepared to do... So I consult a local home brew shop instead.

Well, primed full of useful information to make better beer (such as keep it clean and sanitised using Sod Met, don't use table sugar or caster sugar, try to keep it fermenting in the garage as it is cooler, and the best one: brew a lager using lager yeast..) I started up the beer making again. Wow, it totally changed the results!! What was once alcoholic mop water was now not even fit to be put into a bottle to begin with let alone waiting a month or so to taste how disgusting it was. When I read about people having this twang, or a green apple taste or fruity esters I get this little gag in my throat as I remember trying so very hard to drink my own "lagers".

To put this even better in perspective: I am in Cairns, North Queensland. We get hot for 3/4 of the year, it rains alot during that time keeping the average temp at 28-36c. We do get quite cold in winter, some months we even get below 18c of an evening and I have to get on my winter clothes, like a shirt (if it's really cold, like 14c or so, I even have to get a shirt with sleeves). Imagine the taste of a nice lager fermented somewhere between 25c and 32c. Yes, I thought the same thing after I tasted it...

OK, enough rambling...

To me, to master the art of brewing is to master 3 things: making the wort, fermenting the wort into beer, serving the beer. To be able to brew beer I need to win over Wifey especially in the areas of space, cleanliness and cost. As the GFC has affected alot of this town badly (tourists bailed out, tourist operators bailed out, shit gets more expensive as income goes down) I decided that I need to brew beer, I simply cannot afford to buy it all the time. Given my prior experiences, I sought some REAL advice and stumbled into this forum several months back and read, and read, and clicked, and read, and clicked even more, then onto clicking while reading, and eventually posting. I survived a handful of posts and received some great answers to silly little problems and even some PM advice from some dead-set legends which helped me.

There is a golden rule that Wifey has set in stone and must not be broken: the brewery must cost less than bugger-all and must make great beer. Being I have other expensive hobbies (guitars, my Harley) this "cost" thingy needs careful consideration....

That doesn't sound too hard, in theory. But several months of reading about all the million different systems from professional through to full-ghetto and everything in between taught me that I need to start acquiring pieces as I go or this will start getting pretty expensive. I also need to try out this whole "grain business" about brewing to see what all the rage is about.

With thanks to the "AG for $30" thread, I think it was that one, the stovetop 10L one anyway. Well my biggest pot is 5L so I halved the recipe, spent a couple of $'s with Ross and got me a kilo and a bit of grain as well as a little bag to use. Then I made myself some beer. DAMN NICE BEER!!! Woo hoo!

In one fell swoop I am addicted to getting me an AG setup. But still needed more gear to do it right.

Thus was born "Shred's (almost) Nil-Cost Brewery".

Priorities kiddo!! There is no point making awesome beer if I get the shits about spending 1/2 a day cleaning bottles and bottling and cleaning the mess I made cleaning the bottles let alone the mess I created actually bottling. I needed some kegs. I figured I could at least work out how to make a few cheapo kits and whack them in a keg and drink myself silly while acquiring my brewery components.

Ahh hang on, I still have that temperature control problem with fermenting. Well, I kinda worked around that for the past couple of months using a soft esky-thing on wheels (more like a beer cooler but square), cutting a hole in the side for the tap and a hole in the top for the lid to stick out of and by using a couple of frozen ice bottles twice a day and a towel wrapped around the top I can keep the temp between 17-20c during a ferment. I'll add some pics at some point, it is pretty ghetto but I didn't get a pic of the massive gash on my finger I decided to give myself during the process, it was almost 1cm long and hurt like buggery when I did the smart thing and put dettol on it. I still consider myself lucky I didn't bleed out...

So the kegs... Well a stroke of luck happened and I made the first and only "massive purchase" for my brewery: a bloke in the paper was selling a "beer fridge, 2 kegs, tap in fridge - $300". When I went to check it out, it was pretty much brand spanking new (fridge is a few years old) and included 3.6kg brand new bottle and reg, lines, tap, kegs as well as his fermenting bucket and attachments, big paddle-thingy and even a tin of goop! $300 later and he even delivered it to my place an hour later. Took me a week to get it set up with some beer in it, took me about 15mins to over carb the keg, then took me 2 days to empty my gas bottle (don't ask, that's for another thread about Shred's Misadventures in Kegging Land).

Anyway, I have kegs, and gas, a tap in the door of a fridge and it works. Woo hoo! Serving the beer has been solved many thanks to AHB forum members, especially Screwtop for the awesome detailed advice.

So there I am at work and somehow the topic of "do it yourself" came up and before long we were talking about brewing beer. Now most people I've tried to have this discussion with say either "tastes bad", "takes too long" or "my dad used to" or similar. They all seem to think the same way I did when I was starting out: buy a can of goop, add sugar, throw some yeast at it and hope some of it gets going, bottle, wait, drink, repeat the process... Anyway this bloke seems to know his stuff, he's pushing 60-ish years old and even asks me how I go cooling my wort after the boil. WOW!! Turns out this lad was once part of some uber-brewer club back in his University days and some of his old clubmates are now head brewers around the place and he doesn't drink at all anymore but may have some old brewing gear he can bring in to me. He hasn't used any of it for many many years and would rather see it go to good use than be thrown out.

A week later he drops in to me a couple of ancient buckets, a dirty old immersion chiller and a box thingy with a cord, plug, a light and a dial (sounds technical). This stuff looks like it last saw light around 1994. There was supposed to be an element in there but I never found it, I'm not about to ring the bugger up and ask for it either, this was a gift and I appreciate it immensely, even if I don't know what it does exactly.

At the same time, another mate was scouting for a boiling pot of some description and produces a (no doubt, legally acquired) 50L SS keg for me. I have another mate who may be able to cut/drill the keg for me but I realised a slight issue with that - I would need to buy some pretty funky attachments like weldless stuffs and hoses and something to cook it all with which means a stand or bench of sorts which won't burn down and a height where I can easily take out a full bag of wet grain (I'm a short bugger). Bah too hard! Let's look at these buckets in the meantime, I can keep the keg and make it a pretty neat keggle over time as I get more bits...

Hmm, a bucket-in-a-bucket. Interesting. I read all about this in that All-In-One brewery thread which seemed to spark the BIAB investigations. I was prepared to go all out BIAB but this poses me some interesting design changes... Both buckets look like the standard 30L fermenter style bucket, one of them having had many hours spent attacking the bottom of it with what looks like a 1/8" drill. There must be just less than a million holes in this thing. It fits neatly and tightly into the other bucket (the one with a tap in it) and leaves about 6 inches or so at the bottom. The immersion chiller was made to work with these buckets because it fits snugly into it keeping a few inches of the bottom leaving the hose in/out over the top lip. (Pics later)

I have just received my $40 element from Ross at Craftbrewer (cheers mate!) as my only "new" item purchased for this brewery so far. I'm going to stick it in the bottom of the big bucket once make the hole a little bigger. The tap that was put into the bucket is about 2mm to narrow to fit the element into but I'm sure even a tool-tard like me can make that a little bigger. If not, I have that other bloke's spare fermenter I got with the keg fridge as a backup but I reckon I won't bugger it up too much. *knock on wood*

I kinda need a new tap for it, the old one was brittle and worked like a garden tap which squeaked just trying to move it a little. So I need to get a mate with a holesaw or drill to get a tap onto it for me. There is the recess for a standard fermenter tap which is threaded but still sealed inside (never tapped) and he put the tap into a bigger hole beside it, if I drill the recessed threaded hole through to the inside of the bucket I can use a standard fermenter tap, I hope.

I intend to heat my strike waster using the element, with both buckets in place, then dough in and mash. I'm actually thinking of manually recirculating the mash (possibly doing step mashes later but for now just to keep the temp constant) by pouring out the bottom into a jug and back into the top and repeating this with the element on to keep the temp where I want. I've even looked at caravan style hand-pumps (think: caravan sink) to see if that would work, they're only like $30 or so... Dunno that part yet... I only really need to keep it at mash temp for however long I plan on mashing. I'm going to keep to 20L (ish) brews for a while to get my house beer recipe sorted and so that 1 brew = 1 keg less the crap I leave in the fermenter.

As far as a fermenting fridge, I am waiting for one to become available to me then I make my second "new" purchase for my brewery - the temp controller. Still working out how to go with that, so many options. I have a mate who works in a place where used fridges occasionally pop up in working order with intact seals, it could be a week, a month or a year but I'll get one for about $30 or less, I'm aiming to barter with decent beer once I make some which I am prepared to give away.


....to be continued.... (probably once I get home if I can find the camera)


PS. Sorry about the length of the post, was rather dull at work this arvo and I've had too much caffeine, but if you can read through it then you know where I came from and where I'm up to.

PPS. Again, thanks to AHB members for making me addicted to this!!


Cheers,
Shred.
 
Good on ya mate. It's quite 'interesting' brewing up north here unless you have the means & space to keep it all cool for a while. Good luck and wish u well.
PS: a guy around here has a spare bag of pale ale malt that he picked up, one too many. Give me a yell if you want say..... Half of it? I was gonna grab it soon.
 
I got a pretty cheap set up too:

Fermenter, basic kit - FREE for a birthday present years ago
60L Aluminium pot - FREE A spare stockpot at work that wasn't being used
Immersion Element - $39.90 (thanks Ross!)
BIAB bag - FREE, Mum sewed it up real good :)
NC Cube - $20
Ferment Fridge - $50, from the newspaper classifieds
STC Temp Control - $30 (including case and stuff)

I bottle so I that part is a pain but otherwise have the tools to make awsome beer quite easily :)

Total for full volume AG setup including temp control
$139.90

:super:
 
Nice read...be great with pics and looking forward to chapter 2
 
lol its long but detailed :p I think with a bit of luck and research people can be making good beers with gear that didnt cost them a fortune. I have found cheaper stuff then I have but at the time could not afford it or missed it by a few mins (gotto be ultra quick on here).
 
Hey ShredMaster ... want pdf blueprints for a 1958 Gibson Explorer? :D
 
Hey ShredMaster ... want pdf blueprints for a 1958 Gibson Explorer? :D

Oh please no. I mean hell yes, but no. If I had them I'd go and spend money on tools and figure out how to make one...

Now if it was a '59 Les Paul..... :p

Actually, I'm more an amp geek lately, got my US strat for my 30th a cpl years back so I can have some real tone to work with but love my little valve amps. Got my little Vox AC5 cranking out earlier this eve as it were haha before I took the photos..

Speaking of which, I'd best work out how to get them up here!
 
I made this recently out of Bunnings Tassie Oak. Oh yeah!

IMG_2736.jpg
 
Oh wow! Nice work mate!! Just blended volume pots? NICE! I like to use a 3 way setup the same, I have a Washburn with KILLER tone when you get the neck/bridge levels right!
Did you use a set value tone cap or just raw from the pickups?

I see you worked around the weight issue nicely lol

Mate, you risk turning this thread into a guitar-geek meets beer thread! Pics are uploading currently however, trying to keep on topic...
 
I made this recently out of Bunnings Tassie Oak. Oh yeah!

If that guitar sounds like it looks then I never want to hear it and dont argue Ive heard that crap before.

IMG_2736.jpg

If that guitar sounds like it looks then I never want to hear it..................... and dont argue Ive heard that crap before.
 
Oh wow! Nice work mate!! Just blended volume pots? NICE! I like to use a 3 way setup the same, I have a Washburn with KILLER tone when you get the neck/bridge levels right!
Did you use a set value tone cap or just raw from the pickups?

I see you worked around the weight issue nicely lol

Mate, you risk turning this thread into a guitar-geek meets beer thread! Pics are uploading currently however, trying to keep on topic...

Beer? :D

:icon_offtopic:

Volume for each pickup. The bridge pickup is 16K ... I wound it HOT. There's no cap in the wiring. Google "Holy Explorer". Ironically, that's about $30 worth of Tassie Oak. Heh heh.

Looking forward to your beer pics.
 
Good on ya mate. It's quite 'interesting' brewing up north here unless you have the means & space to keep it all cool for a while. Good luck and wish u well.
PS: a guy around here has a spare bag of pale ale malt that he picked up, one too many. Give me a yell if you want say..... Half of it? I was gonna grab it soon.

Hell yes that would be cool if you'd want to part with 1/2 a bag of grain, that would be nice and easy for me to test it all with! I'll be in touch via PM once I get this thingy all sorted and able to boil 20ish liters of water or so...

Still uploading pics /sigh, it's a mix between taking too many pics of random shit in the garage and being on carrier-pigeon rated internet. Such is life....



EDIT: Wait (dammit), I don't have a grain mill. While I do have a coffee grinder, I'm not exactly sure where it is.... I'll work something out, I'm in no rush lol, somehow it has to stick to the Wife's Law (cost less than bugger-all)...
 
Lol. Unless ur eons away, feel welcome to using my mill. Haha.
I'll call the guy tomorrow and pickup the bag of grain, bn meaning to, now I have half a reason more.
 
OK, Pic time, bear with me....


First, the problem:
IMG_5401.jpg


(I have 2 of these bins...)
IMG_5402.jpg


Then, the solution:
IMG_5400.jpg


NOTE: I even tried to remove the sticker, see the torn part near the top. All that did was remove the plastic and leave the sticky bit. Now I need to come up with a brewery logo that is diamond shaped....
 

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