Designing My New Brewery - sizing & to HERMS or not to HERMS

[Ste_Mulv]

Hello all,

After a couple of years since my last brew, I am going to get back on it. It is also time that I bought and made some decent equipment. My plan is to start with a mash tun, as it is pretty damn important to get right, and using any old pots and pans for the rest of the brew for the time being.

The end game is to have a 1 barrel brewery (50ltrs I think?), so larger than the 5 gallon I have done before.

So first question: what to make the mash tun out of?

Q2: It looks like stainless steel is the preferred option and HERMS to do a multi temp mash, but what are the advantages? Do commercial breweries step the temp up during the mash? If so why?

Q3: I was planning on using a cool box as my mash tun, is there any major disadvantages of doing this compared with steel?

Q4: what size mash tun should I go for given I aim for 1bbl brews in the end? I will limit my brew size to the boiler capacity for the first few brews, but I will move to the boiler building once my mash tun is up and running.

Btw my current mash tun is two ikea stack and store boxes, one with 100s of small holes in the bottom to act as a false bottom. That mash tun is rubbish, but it still won me ale of the festival at the Bexley Home Brew Festival!

Finally, and linked to Q4: what % of the mash volume should be used to sparge? I have had the brew volume + 20% in the boiler, well before the sparge runs light.

Steve

 

[nicknoxx]

1 barrel is 164 litres so if you really want a 1bbl set-up you going to need a mash tun of at least 100 litres. You'll probably struggle to find a cool box that big.

You can always add a HERMS later if you plan for at the start.

Sorry this doesn't really answer any of your questions

 

[Ste_Mulv]

I have found a 100ltr cool box that I plan on procuring, so that bit is fine.

I understand a barrel is a unit of measurement rather than a physical object, but i am never sure if by barrel anyone if referring to the 88 pimt cast that is (as far as I am aware) standard cast size used for beer in pubs. I have looked at buying an off the shelf nano brewery, they are sized at 1 or 3 bbl. does that refer to 164 ltr barrels or 88 pint casts?

 

[DethApostle]

In almost all beer related contexts a barrel relates to a Brewers Barrel at 36 gallons (c. 164 litres)
Those 1BBL nano-breweries are capable of brewing 36 gallons per batch.

Smaller (more transportable) kegs/casks are generally refered to by the capacity, 9's, 11's, 18's, etc or by their old-school names pins, firkins, etc.
Also worth noting that kegs are generally 11's and 22's, and casks are generally 9's and 18's

DA