Months of preparation have led to this....

[charlieabbottuk]

Can finally hold my head up and say that I have actually brewed something at last. Saturday saw the culmination of months of preparation and years of talking about it making our own beer with a Timmy Talylors clone going into the Fermenter.

Here is some pictorial proof:

Mash

Sparg

Wort

Hops

Fermenter

18 hours later

Have to wait till Saturday at the earliest to taste it but it now looks and smells like beer so fingers crossed.

 

[PD]

well done indeed, a good looking vessel there too.

 

[ScottM]

That looks like a cracking setup. Did you make it all or buy it in?

 

[charlieabbottuk]

All bought I'm afraid, didn't want to blame the kit and were too worried about our ability so went for one we know makes good beer.

 

[ScottM]

All bought I'm afraid, didn't want to blame the kit and were too worried about our ability so went for one we know makes good beer.

It all looks fantastic, lot of investment but that's what it's all about :)

Are you going to be selling the beer or is it just for yourself/mates etc?

 

[PD]

its not the kit that makes beer...Its the brewer. If it turns out good, congratulate yourselves not the gear.

 

[bunkerbrewer]

Blimey, my first brew was a plastic bucket and a Wherry kit :)

Looks ace - congrats! :thumb:

 

[charlieabbottuk]

Well at least no-one has said it doesn't look right so I guess we are getting there.

The plan is to use this kit to get the recipes right before we go all out and start selling it, all part of the retirement plan.

 

[musher]

charlieabbottuk

What does a setup like that cost, and how did you get your wife to agee to it ?

 

[charlieabbottuk]

charlieabbottuk

What does a setup like that cost, and how did you get your wife to agee to it ?

Building, plumbing and electrics aside I would estimate about £3.5k bearing in mind we started with absolutely nothing. I appreciate this is quite a sum even though I am going 50/50 with my neighbour but we will keep this for special brews once we get something a lot bigger so it is not going to be lost.

As for the wife if yours is not very supportive get another one or get a creative accountant.

 

[wilsoa1111]

woah that looks proper :thumb:

and my mates think spending £150 to get my first 100l of AG going was a bit pricy :lol:

how much does one of those setups make out of interest?

 

[charlieabbottuk]

This is one of Elite Stainless Fabrication's baby units so only 100 litres but it is a dream to use. We added a Hop Rocket as we are looking to produce some hoppy IPA's. We started at 8am and were all cleaned and ready for the pub at 4pm.

 

[fbsf]

Blimey. That's lovely.

I'm still using a 25yr old Boots FV with a net curtain bag in it as a mashtun, and a 33L FV with a kettle element in it as a boiler.

Saying that, a gorgeous setup like that would need to go somewhere, and it'd probably have to take the place of my Suzuki 500, so I'll stick with the plastic for now

 

[Monte Cristo]

Crikey! that looks a damn fine rig, Thumbs up from me Squire :thumb:

 

[dennisking]

Pure porn.

 

[BrewBilly]

Very nice setup-very jealous, I'll have to hint to the swmbo that its fathers day soon and need some spoiling.

Cheers
BrewBilly

 

[DethApostle]

I'm sure i've probably missed it in the posts already (i'm going to blame being distracted by the photos!) but what's the volume of that system?

I'm trying to get a sense of it's size and whether it'd fit in my garage!
Cheers
DA

 

[charlieabbottuk]

You can get some more info here: http://esfabrications.co.uk

The HLT holds 140ltr, the Mash Tun is 120ltr and the Copper is 130ltr, our FV is supposed to be 100ltr but even though the Copper was full (it boiled over with the lid on) we have managed to get it all in there without fermenting over the sides.

Dimensions of the kit (not including fermenter) are 2.7mtrs x 1mtr x 2.7mtrs high.

Hope this helps.