Hazelwood Brewday

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Moved my kegs back into the brew-shed tonight and set the temperature to 16C for the moment to warm my icy beer.

Now got to figure out how to lay-out my kegs, cornys, and the gas distribution. I’m thinking of lifting out the middle shelf and putting my cornys on the bottom shelf. If I do, I’ll have 6 kegs in the brew-shed rather than 10. I’ll sleep on it.

 

[Rodcx500z]

What a top Mr H hats off to you

 

[Clint]

Moved my kegs back into the brew-shed tonight and set the temperature to 16C for the moment to warm my icy beer.

Now got to figure out how to lay-out my kegs, cornys, and the gas distribution. I’m thinking of lifting out the middle shelf and putting my cornys on the bottom shelf. If I do, I’ll have 6 kegs in the brew-shed rather than 10. I’ll sleep on it.

View attachment 35063

A nest of cornies!

 

[NormanHurst]

This is seriously impressive. As someone who can barely rewire a plug, I salute you wholeheartedly!

 

[user 18729]

Th

A nest of cornies!

They’ll start breeding...

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Th

They’ll start breeding...

I wish! That would save some money!

 

[Theoriginalrich]

Just phenomenal, I’m both jealous and impressed in equal amounts.

 

[Pennine]

Are those cornies new? Full?

Looks great in there, I would think about 10-12 would be a good testing place. 16 seems a bit warm.

 

[dave_77]

Moved my kegs back into the brew-shed tonight and set the temperature to 16C for the moment to warm my icy beer.

Now got to figure out how to lay-out my kegs, cornys, and the gas distribution. I’m thinking of lifting out the middle shelf and putting my cornys on the bottom shelf. If I do, I’ll have 6 kegs in the brew-shed rather than 10. I’ll sleep on it.

View attachment 35063

Very impressive

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Are those cornies new? Full?

Looks great in there, I would think about 10-12 would be a good testing place. 16 seems a bit warm.

New but empty at the moment, I haven’t started brewing again yet.

I started at 16 to bring the temperature up a little more quickly. The temperature is now set at 14, my target temperature.

The cooler will be used to chill specific beers further. Lager for example will be served around 0 degrees.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Very impressive

You be able to come and have a look for yourself after lock-down, and enjoy a cool beer in the summer!

 

[dave_77]

You be able to come and have a look for yourself after lock-down, and enjoy a cool beer in the summer!

Sounds like a plan

 

[Pennine]

New but empty at the moment, I haven’t started brewing again yet.

I started at 16 to bring the temperature up a little more quickly. The temperature is now set at 14, my target temperature.

The cooler will be used to chill specific beers further. Lager for example will be served around 0 degrees.

You have a bright future ahead of you filling those up! I am kind of jealous.

Yes I should have remembered that about the lager cooling. I am assuming you have cooling jackets for the kegs or will you just run lines around them?

also sorry about all the questions this is just a project I see in my near future.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

You have a bright future ahead of you filling those up! I am kind of jealous.

Yes I should have remembered that about the lager cooling. I am assuming you have cooling jackets for the kegs or will you just run lines around them?

also sorry about all the questions this is just a project I see in my near future.

No need for cooling jackets, the whole brew-shed is temperature controlled - like a walk-in fridge! All the kegs will be at 14 degrees because the shed is 14 degrees.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I slept on it and made a decision. I decided to reserve the shelves for my kegs - the reason for this whole project was to keep them at a controlled temperature and if I put the cornies on the lower shelf (and remove the middle shelf), 4 kegs will have to go in the garage and will again be at the mercy of the weather. So that’s it, the cornies will sit on the floor even if it’s a little crowded.

With the decision made, I’ve fixed the gas distribution. There’s a couple more gas manifolds in the post that will need to be fitted to the secondary regulators.

The Kingspan is going a good job. When I went into the shed it was at 14 degrees, the temperature I’d set. After I’d been in the shed for a few minutes the cooling system kicked in - my body heat had raised the temperature to 15 degrees!

 

[Leon103]

How will you get the lager keg to 0c without effecting the other kegs?

 

[obscure]

Moved my kegs back into the brew-shed tonight and set the temperature to 16C for the moment to warm my icy beer.

Now got to figure out how to lay-out my kegs, cornys, and the gas distribution. I’m thinking of lifting out the middle shelf and putting my cornys on the bottom shelf. If I do, I’ll have 6 kegs in the brew-shed rather than 10. I’ll sleep on it.

View attachment 35063

I am both jealous and impressed by your new setup (unfortunately given how bad I am at things like this I would properly end up in A&E if I tried this).

I take it the intention is to keep using the king kegs as well as the corny kegs?

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

How will you get the lager keg to 0c without effecting the other kegs?

The cooler has an ice bath that you can chill right down to -30C if you use glycol (I won’t be taking it that low!). This chilled water/glycol in the water bath is pumped out of a “recirculation” port to be used for cooling the python, shed, and fermenter then returns back to the water bath. In the picture below, the two upward pointing ports with the blue shut-off valves are the recirculation ports. The coolant comes out of the one on the right and returns via the one on the left.

In addition there are four steel tube coils immersed in that chilled water bath that you can run beer through to cool it down. These are the two sets of four ports below the recirculation ports (4 x “in” and 4 x “out”). Two of those coils are 6m long and any beer sent through those coils is 15C lower when it comes out than when it went in. Two coils are 3m long and cool the beer by 7/8C.

My shed will be 14C as will all the kegs/cornies in the shed. If I pass the beer from one of those cornies through the cooler coils it will be further cooled by 15 or 7C depending on whether I use one of the longer coils or shorter coils.

Does this makes sense?

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I am both jealous and impressed by your new setup (unfortunately given how bad I am at things like this I would properly end up in A&E if I tried this).

I take it the intention is to keep using the king kegs as well as the corny kegs?

I’ve always had a “technical brain” and just done practical things all my life. I think if you just do things you develop skills. I still make mistakes and suffer the odd injury

Yes, I’ll be using both cornies and kegs. The kegs are for “cask” beers and the cornies are for more highly carbonated beers.

 

[Pennine]

Huh that's very interesting and what I was asking about. Do you think you will have any taste, carbonation or foaming issues flash freezing like that?