Greetings from Llangollen

[Llanbrewer]

I'm back to brewing after a gap of well over 30 years. I started brewing as a teenager, wasn't able to do it at university, and then started going in earnest when I was married. Those were the days of the Boots kit and little else. One of my specialities was a totally undrinkable massively over strength stout, which was used for marinading and cooking. The high alcohol level was ideal for tenderising the toughest of meat. At my peak, I had three kegs, and something always on the go. Then came children.....

The brewery room was hijacked by my wife who insisted that babies had to have somewhere to sleep. Beer production was disrupted and consumption limited by the work necessity to do night call outs. The brewing withered away.

I'm now semi retired, and keen on moving back to an area, which if some of the papers are to be believed, has been transformed by superior kits.

I had a mega clean out of the greenhouse the other week and bought some racking in a kit which comes with a cover. I was going to use this outside in the summer to grow herbs, but it occurred to me that it might make an ideal brewing rack.

The main problem that I identified was that of temperature control. We have quite a large house and tend to keep it pretty cool and just up the temperature of rooms we are in a the time. Nowhere has a consistent 20 C. and my wife expressed a lack of enthusiasm for "having the house smelling like a brewery."

So, the greenhouse it had to be. I tested the racking system with weights to make sure it could hold 25 kg on one rack. I wrapped most of the exterior cover in bubblewrap and insulated the ground too. I used a piece of clean finished wood as a shelf an inch or so above the ground and installed a cheapo 2kw fan heater, and checked the temperature at the level where the FV would be. Even on maximum setting the temperature was only getting up to 15 C because the thermostat cut out after the heater had been on for a few seconds. I had to find some way of upping the temperature.

I was unsure as to the power output of the heaters used for home brew purposes, and decided to work on the safe side, by going to the local garden centre which has an aquarium section. A 200 watt heater promised to be able to maintain up to 34 C in a 200 litre tank. Assuming that the exterior ambient temperature (ie the room temperature) would be up to 20 C this seemed to promise ample capacity in that an uplift capability of 14 C for 200 litres should breeze through an uplift of 5 C for 23 litres.

I brewed up a Kent Ale kit yesterday, and put the FV in my new brewing chamber. I've got the fan heater for external ambient heating at the bottom of the chamber, and the immersion heater positioned a few inches from the bottom of the FV with the thermostat set at 21 C.

The maximum and minimum thermometer in the brewing chamber indicates a steady 20 C. I'm not too worried about an hour of sunlight lifting the temperature of the chamber to 30 C because the thermal capacity of the FV should be such that the short period of excessive heat will have little affect on the temperature of the liquor.

Where I will have a problem is maintaining 20 C for a couple of days in the pressure keg to get the secondary fermentation as I won't have the benefit of the immersion heater. I'm planning to get a beer belt and hope that this will give it the necessary uplift. Otherwise, I'd put the keg in the bath in the spare bathroom, and crank up the central heating there for a couple of days.

Obviously, this is all very experimental, and my first attempt for over 30 years, so any comments would be very welcome.

Please don't be afraid to tell me if I'm doing something badly wrong. I'd rather know now, than find out the hard way.

Thanks for reading this far anyway.

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi!
Welcome to the forum.

The brewery room was hijacked by my wife who insisted that babies had to have somewhere to sleep.

Wives can be so unreasonable :lol:

Most homebrewers use the aquarium heater to heat a water bath for the FV to stand in.

Post 2 here shows Dutto's "contraption": http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=67262
He has made a fermentation chamber that is big enough for a FV and bottles. A tubular greenhouse heater keeps it warm and the British winter keeps it cool :grin:. Most homebrewers would use an electronic temperature controller (Inkbird is a popular model).
The chamber needs to be fully insulated and enclosed from the outside - a mini-environment, really.

I hope that helps.
Colin

 

[Llanbrewer]

Hi!
Welcome to the forum.



Wives can be so unreasonable :lol:

Most homebrewers use the aquarium heater to heat a water bath for the FV to stand in.

Post 2 here shows Dutto's "contraption": http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=67262
He has made a fermentation chamber that is big enough for a FV and bottles. A tubular greenhouse heater keeps it warm and the British winter keeps it cool :grin:. Most homebrewers would use an electronic temperature controller (Inkbird is a popular model).
The chamber needs to be fully insulated and enclosed from the outside - a mini-environment, really.

I hope that helps.
Colin

Thanks for that Colin. I'm now having to convince my wife that a 200 watt heater isn't going to cost so much in energy bills that we have to sell the house to pay for it.

I did give brief thought to a water bath, but I did not have a large enough container and it would give rise to evaporation issues unless sealed. The aquarium heater suggestion came (over a pint naturally) from a mate of mine who is a recently retired Environment Agency water scientist. He's very keen on trying the brew, so I think he's got my best interests at heart.

Patrick

 

[ericmark]

I live not far away in Mold and my wife also wanted me out of the kitchen, 200 watt seems over kill. So I will tell you what I did and found as you may be able to copy some of it.
The fridge/freezer was condemned as insulation had failed causing huge lumps of ice to form in fridge, so instead of taking to the skip it went into garage for my brewing, I thought I would only need to heat, well that was not the case, the first few days of fermenting produce too much heat, so once ambient in garage hits 12 deg C then I need the freezer compartment to hold the temperature down to 20 degs C. Since it cools freezer first I can start off in freezer then after first 5 days I can move to fridge, after 5 days then only heating is required, even when summer sun hits steel garage door and temperature in garage hits 30 degs C, the fridge raises less than 1 degree so fermenter sits at 20 degrees without a problem. I use two thermostats one in freezer which heats and cools, and one in fridge which only heats.

I used an energy meter to see what size of heater I needed, as smaller the heater the less it will over shoot, I found it needs 5W so I use an 8W bulb in freezer, in the fridge I have an old demo underfloor heating tile 18W really too big but as long as I don't try ramping up the temperature it works OK.

The sensor is held against the fermenter under a sponge, in freezer I also measured air temperature, with fermenter at 24 degs C the air temperature went down to 8 degs C before the 20 degs set was reached, however it did not over shoot by even 0.1 degrees so no problem measuring fermenter temperature. For heating at just 8W no over shoot.

As to kits Wrexham has a Wilco where you can buy kits, often on offer. Saltney has a brew shop by railway bridge for anything you can't find at Wilco. I don't go to Wrexham that much, so not sure if any other brew shops.

I pack my fridge and freezer compartments with beer already bottled around the fermenters for 10 days before it goes to shed, so work on a 10 day cycle.
10 days fermenter in freezer
1 day in fridge left to settle then rack to clean fermenter.
9 more days in fridge
bottled and 10 days in fridge or freezer
moved to shed.
So flat out 40 pints every 10 days, at moment nothing brewing.
I think the aquarium heater in a builders trug with fermenter in trug is likely the easiest cheapest way to restart. But I also think in the end you will want a brew fridge, so question is do you start with trug or go straight for fridge? The STC-1000 was the standard unit used, but the Inkbird is ready built so taking over, the E-1000 is also replacing the STC-1000 as it has touch control and other extra features.

 

[Llanbrewer]

Thanks, Ericmark. The moment I saw the water bath method, I could see the advantages over my set up. I even measured up my dirty garden trug, and had a quick look at the price of new ones. I might manage to raise the £8!

I agree with you over 200 watt overkill, and I had calculated that 50-70 watts would probably do the job. I was a bit paranoid though after about five days of it being below zero in the garden and greenhouse, so when I saw little difference in price between heaters, I opted for 200 watts. We're on the north side of the valley in Llangollen and the winter weather can be surprisingly chilly.

The setup is holding a remarkably steady 21 C and I could smell the brew in the garden after opening the door for a quick check. I plan to get a lager on next and bottle it. I should be able to get most of the bottles in a water bath in the FV for a couple of days of secondary fermentation, before putting them in a cool corner for conditioning.

 

[ericmark]

I tried two lager kits, one as instructions 20 deg C other tried to lager the latter a complete failure. Problem is we don't boil water used for kits, does not matter how clean there will be bugs, so you need the fermenting to start quickly and the alcohol then kills the bugs. So with kits 19 deg C is the minimum temperature. With grain then the boiling kills all bugs and as long as everything is super clean lager works.

So a very light beer no problem, but true lager not with kits.

For first few years I did one can kits and tried to adjust sugar used, what I had not realised was my temperature was no where near stable, so mixed results as two variables, what ever I changed and the temperature, no really bad beer, but very few were really good either. When I started with fridge/freezer I noted the temperature strip was not showing same temperature as the controller, could not work this out at first, then realised the wall of fermenter is either cooled or warmed by air around it. Temperature strip was on wall so shows some where between ambient and fermenter temperature. But under a sponge the sensor for the temperature controller was within 0.5 deg C of centre of fermenter, at least it was with mine heating from below.

I made so errors with temperature both too low and too high, once that first 5 days has passed you want it a couple of degrees warmer to ensure it has finished fermenting. Just luck but the fridge/freezer works well, first 5 -10 days at 19 degs, second at 22 degs I find that works well. I also use pop bottles 12 x 2 litre far easier than 40 x 1 pint. Also any errors can be felt without opening bottle.

But must admit the really big step forward was using twin can kits instead of single can kits.

 

[terrym]

Problem is we don't boil water used for kits, does not matter how clean there will be bugs, so you need the fermenting to start quickly and the alcohol then kills the bugs. .

I have always used my mains tap water for brewing, and have never had any problems. I work on the basis that if its good enough to drink without a second thought it's good enough to use as brewing water. What I don't do however is use water from the hot water system which may well have got contaminated.

 

[darkbright]

I'm back to brewing after a gap of well over 30 years. I started brewing as a teenager, wasn't able to do it at university, and then started going in earnest when I was married. Those were the days of the Boots kit and little else. One of my specialities was a totally undrinkable massively over strength stout, which was used for marinading and cooking. The high alcohol level was ideal for tenderising the toughest of meat. At my peak, I had three kegs, and something always on the go. Then came children.....

The brewery room was hijacked by my wife who insisted that babies had to have somewhere to sleep. Beer production was disrupted and consumption limited by the work necessity to do night call outs. The brewing withered away.

I'm now semi retired, and keen on moving back to an area, which if some of the papers are to be believed, has been transformed by superior kits.

I had a mega clean out of the greenhouse the other week and bought some racking in a kit which comes with a cover. I was going to use this outside in the summer to grow herbs, but it occurred to me that it might make an ideal brewing rack.

The main problem that I identified was that of temperature control. We have quite a large house and tend to keep it pretty cool and just up the temperature of rooms we are in a the time. Nowhere has a consistent 20 C. and my wife expressed a lack of enthusiasm for "having the house smelling like a brewery."

So, the greenhouse it had to be. I tested the racking system with weights to make sure it could hold 25 kg on one rack. I wrapped most of the exterior cover in bubblewrap and insulated the ground too. I used a piece of clean finished wood as a shelf an inch or so above the ground and installed a cheapo 2kw fan heater, and checked the temperature at the level where the FV would be. Even on maximum setting the temperature was only getting up to 15 C because the thermostat cut out after the heater had been on for a few seconds. I had to find some way of upping the temperature.

I was unsure as to the power output of the heaters used for home brew purposes, and decided to work on the safe side, by going to the local garden centre which has an aquarium section. A 200 watt heater promised to be able to maintain up to 34 C in a 200 litre tank. Assuming that the exterior ambient temperature (ie the room temperature) would be up to 20 C this seemed to promise ample capacity in that an uplift capability of 14 C for 200 litres should breeze through an uplift of 5 C for 23 litres.

I brewed up a Kent Ale kit yesterday, and put the FV in my new brewing chamber. I've got the fan heater for external ambient heating at the bottom of the chamber, and the immersion heater positioned a few inches from the bottom of the FV with the thermostat set at 21 C.

The maximum and minimum thermometer in the brewing chamber indicates a steady 20 C. I'm not too worried about an hour of sunlight lifting the temperature of the chamber to 30 C because the thermal capacity of the FV should be such that the short period of excessive heat will have little affect on the temperature of the liquor.

Where I will have a problem is maintaining 20 C for a couple of days in the pressure keg to get the secondary fermentation as I won't have the benefit of the immersion heater. I'm planning to get a beer belt and hope that this will give it the necessary uplift. Otherwise, I'd put the keg in the bath in the spare bathroom, and crank up the central heating there for a couple of days.

Obviously, this is all very experimental, and my first attempt for over 30 years, so any comments would be very welcome.

Please don't be afraid to tell me if I'm doing something badly wrong. I'd rather know now, than find out the hard way.

Thanks for reading this far anyway.

Welcome!

Not brewing related but had many great holidays in LLangollen in my childhood. Beautiful little town. We loved walking by the river and watching poeople jump off the bridge in the summer. We used to stay at my Aunties cottage up near Plas Newydd. Took my wife there a few years ago and must make an effort to get up there again.

 

[Brett74]

The thing is, they really don't smell, I have as mall workshop in our house and I can have 6 x 25liter batches going nuts in there and when you walk in you can just smell the beer, with one going, you can't smell it.
I would never give a man advice as to how to negotiate with his wife, but might just mention how easy it is to get forgiveness as apposed to permission, especially now in the Xmas season! Screw the shed, move it all inside, its beer, it deserves at least that much!!

 

[Llanbrewer]

I'm working on it, but if it's all indoors, there is a degree of supervision of the "my grandfather never did it like that" variety.

 

[Dutto]

Welcome to the Forum. :thumb: :thumb:

My brother often told me "Married life has its benefits." ... :thumb:

... but as he stayed single all his life I took his remarks with a pinch of salt!

 

[ericmark]

I'm working on it, but if it's all indoors, there is a degree of supervision of the "my grandfather never did it like that" variety.

Neither did mine, he was TT.