System Update

Well our system collaboration has now turned into a business venture. Andy and I are going to try and open a commercial nanobrewery with no debt and no investors. A feat that is difficult but will hopefully become profitable.

We've brewed on the new system once so far. Basically we just took the last ingredients we had on hand and made a hodgepodge beer that we affectionately named StupidBrew. We'll be ordering a bunch of ingredients soon to start some test batches of our flagship ales. Only problem we are currently encountering is our ability to screen out hops. I am almost done constructing a new hop screen that should work better. I'll take some photos soon and post them.

Below are some pictures of how things have progressed. Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures of the process. These pictures and more updates can be seen at our facebook page.

The overall system. One day we'll build nicer stands

Me in a kettle

Mounting the Counter Flow Chiller mid-brew

Our first conical. 110 Gallon capacity

 

False Bottom

As stated in a previous post, we decided to fabricate our own false bottom. Basically I just ordered a 24" x 24" stainless perforated sheet with 0.09375" holes with a 0.15625" stagger. After I climbed inside the kettle my wife placed the perforated sheet on top and I used a sharpie to trace the shape of the kettle. Then I cut out the circle with my angle grinder.

The handle and the leg supports will be made out of  0.125" x 0.75" stainless flat bar and bent into shape. I cut each support/handle at 10" and make marks where I want the bend. Placing the flat bar in my vice at the appropriate mark I hit it with a hammer until it has a 90 degree bend.

As of now I have the sheet cut into a circle, the handle shaped, and the handle attached. Hopefully this weekend I can clean up the cut a little bit, fabricate the supports, and then install the supports.

The false bottom so far. Still need the edge cleaned up and
supports installed.

 

System Progress

Andy went and dropped off our HLT and Boil Kettle for welding. We are having three 2-inch tri-clamp ferrules welded into each. These are where the heating elements will be attached. Going this route versus a weldless set up allows us to easily remove the elements for cleaning. Hopefully the welding will be finished by the beginning of next week.

We are constructing our own false bottom. The lowest price we could find for a custom built one was upwards of $250. We are building our own for less than half that price. The materials arrived at our house today and will hopefully be fabricated this weekend.

As of now the only items we need to be able to test our first batch on the new system are:
4-heating elements
4-element adapters

We will need more than these items to brew the way we want to. But these are the last items we need for this system to be able to run.