The Chaos that is a Buffers Brewery brew day
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Crikey - 'nature abhors a vacuum', as my Mum would say.Not had this before....
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I left the flask and hydrometer on the kitchen window cill after brew day on Friday...and it looks like it’s fermenting! Wild yeast or some micro-organism having fun in there I guess. Time to wash up me thinks!
A lot of the time I think when we sterilise we are just reducing the proportion of 'foreign' micro-organisms compared to the yeast we're going to pitch, rather than eliminating them... and I suppose all it takes is one bit of dust floating around with spores and bacteria hitch-hiking on it...
Once the brewers yeast gets hold though it very quickly dominates.
private4587
Member
The bed is 235*235*250What’s the maximum size you can print @private4587 ?
I have a (very complicated) cunning plan 
But I need some detail regarding the Allrounder’s neck and thread detail to sort out the fixing. Any chance you could DM me the neck ID, and as much detail as you can on the thread form and diameters or a close-up picture of the thread profile with a metric rule against it so I can scale off? My idea will increase the height of the unit by up to 75mm depending what capacity you need.
Cheers
private4587
Member
I have fermenting brew in it at the moment Keith, once it’s finished I will try get the details you asked for
But I need some detail regarding the Allrounder’s neck and thread detail to sort out the fixing. Any chance you could DM me the neck ID, and as much detail as you can on the thread form and diameters or a close-up picture of the thread profile with a metric rule against it so I can scale off? My idea will increase the height of the unit by up to 75mm depending what capacity you need.
Cheers
Ok. In the meantime I’ve put a “shout out” up to see if anybody can give me the info.
Well, 5 days into fermentation and it’s gone quiet so I’ve reduced the temperature to 16C and it’s time to dry hop....cue the premier performance of the Buffers brewery Dry Hopper 
Well that was pretty.....uneventful?
Well that was pretty.....uneventful?
Four days after dry hopping and ten days after brewday first SG reading...
... 1.013. Makes it 3.9% ABV. Next reading in a couple of days. It's smelling good already
... 1.013. Makes it 3.9% ABV. Next reading in a couple of days. It's smelling good already
The Kohatu hopped pale ale has just finished conditioning.
First glass.....
Quite dry. Very drinkable. And SWMBO says she likes it too
First glass.....
Quite dry. Very drinkable. And SWMBO says she likes it too
Looks yummyThe Kohatu hopped pale ale has just finished conditioning.
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First glass.....
View attachment 48751
Quite dry. Very drinkable. And SWMBO says she likes it too
Well, you remember this...
....well today was the day I find out if it worked.....Now the exciting bit! The first test of the BUFFERS BREWERY DRY HOPPER!
Here it is with 100grm Galaxy and 50grm Citra..
The result is......
No!
No!
Having transferred the fermented beer to a King Keg, it was time to lift the FV lid and inspect the Dry Hopper....
...well some of the hop pellets made it out of the hopper, but it’s obvious that during fermentation, even though there’s no sign that the fermentation foamed sufficient to get in the hopper, the high humidity was enough to loosen the pellets and make them solidify and stick to the hopper. I might try lining the hopper with some silicone baking sheet in an attempt to prevent the hop pellets from sticking to the hopper. Oh, you live and learn
I guess one thing is that if the beer tastes hoppy I can dry hop with half the hops next time
...well some of the hop pellets made it out of the hopper, but it’s obvious that during fermentation, even though there’s no sign that the fermentation foamed sufficient to get in the hopper, the high humidity was enough to loosen the pellets and make them solidify and stick to the hopper. I might try lining the hopper with some silicone baking sheet in an attempt to prevent the hop pellets from sticking to the hopper. Oh, you live and learn
I guess one thing is that if the beer tastes hoppy I can dry hop with half the hops next time
Having another go at Abbey beer today.....with a difference. Grain bill reduced by 25%. Aiming for a beer around 4% ABV.
EDIT:
3 kg Pilsner malt
675 grm Vienna malt
300 grm Biscuit malt
30 grm Perle 75 minutes
20 grm Styrian Goldings 5 minutes
1 pack MJ 47 Abbey yeast
Set everything up yesterday afternoon and checked out everything worked....and it didn’t One of my pumps refused to work. Eventually traced it down to a poor electrical connection in the plug! Eight gallons of tap water treated with a crushed campden tablet and left overnight ready for the morning.
Brew day went without hitch. Had to use a secondary chiller with a bag of ice in the water to get down to 22C (ambient).
I used hop pellets for the first time and whirlpooled. Got a reasonably nice little mound in the middle of the boiler.
Got a little over 5 gallons of wort into the fermentation bucket (forgot to fit my float assembly until it was too late)...
SG reading...
I make that 1.044. That looks like it could be a 4%er
EDIT:
3 kg Pilsner malt
675 grm Vienna malt
300 grm Biscuit malt
30 grm Perle 75 minutes
20 grm Styrian Goldings 5 minutes
1 pack MJ 47 Abbey yeast
Set everything up yesterday afternoon and checked out everything worked....and it didn’t
One of my pumps refused to work. Eventually traced it down to a poor electrical connection in the plug! Eight gallons of tap water treated with a crushed campden tablet and left overnight ready for the morning.Brew day went without hitch. Had to use a secondary chiller with a bag of ice in the water to get down to 22C (ambient).
I used hop pellets for the first time and whirlpooled. Got a reasonably nice little mound in the middle of the boiler.
Got a little over 5 gallons of wort into the fermentation bucket (forgot to fit my float assembly until it was too late)...
SG reading...
I make that 1.044. That looks like it could be a 4%er
Last edited:
Going through my numbers this morning. Yesterday’s brew day achieved a satisfying 81% Brewhouse efficiency . My brewing process is settling down into a nice routine that, providing the equipment works 
, yields ok results. For the record, I thought I’d share some of the details of my process. My set up is a 2 vessel (emulating a 3 vessel) BIAB HERMS .
As I’m an outdoor under a gazebo brewer, I prepare the day before. Since I mounted all my stuff on trollies, getting it all out of the garage is now a quick and easy process. Everything is cleaned and tested. HERMS tank is filled with water and the boiler/kettle is filled with 8 gallons of tap water and campden tablet crushed and added. Grain bill is weighed out. Hops and yeast taken out of the fridge.
Brew day.
HERMS tank heating is turned ON (takes about 45 minutes to get up to temperature, 72C).
5 gallons of water is transferred to the fermentation bucket.
A kettle of hot water is added to the mash tun as a pre-heat.
The remaining 3 gallons of strike water is heated ready to mash.
The water is drained from the mash tun and the grain added.
Strike water is pumped (slowly) from the kettle through the mash tun tap to the grain.
Grain is given a good stir making sure there are no lumps.
Mash tun tap connected to the HERMS tank (via a pump) and wort is pumped (slowly) through the heat exchange and back to the mash tun.
Every 15 minutes, give the mash a good stir.
During the mash, transfer the remaining 5 gallons of water back to the kettle and heat to sparge temperature (75C).
At the end of the (first) mash, transfer the wort to the (now empty) fermentation bucket.
Refill the mash tun with half the remaining water, stir and recirculate through HERMS.
Stir after 15 minutes.
After a further 15 minutes transfer the wort to the fermentation bucket.
Refill the mash tun with the remaining water, stir and recirculate through HERMS.
Stir after 15 minutes.
Transfer the wort from the fermentation bucket back to the now empty kettle and start heating for the boil.
Transfer the last of the wort from the mash tun to the kettle (squeezing the grain bag to extract as much wort as possible) 15 minutes after stirring.
Once the wort is boiling, add hops according to recipe.
15 minutes from the end of the boil add 1/2 protofloc tablet (crushed) and start recirculating through whirlpool.
At the end of the boil, connect chiller circuit and start cooling while continuing to whirlpool.
When cooled, stop whirlpooling and leave for an hour before transferring wort to the now sanitised fermentation bucket (take sample for SG measurement).
Add yeast and fit lid.
Move bucket to fermentation fridge.
That’s what I do and it seems to work. Cheers
. My brewing process is settling down into a nice routine that, providing the equipment works , yields ok results. For the record, I thought I’d share some of the details of my process. My set up is a 2 vessel (emulating a 3 vessel) BIAB HERMS .As I’m an outdoor under a gazebo brewer, I prepare the day before. Since I mounted all my stuff on trollies, getting it all out of the garage is now a quick and easy process. Everything is cleaned and tested. HERMS tank is filled with water and the boiler/kettle is filled with 8 gallons of tap water and campden tablet crushed and added. Grain bill is weighed out. Hops and yeast taken out of the fridge.
Brew day.
HERMS tank heating is turned ON (takes about 45 minutes to get up to temperature, 72C).
5 gallons of water is transferred to the fermentation bucket.
A kettle of hot water is added to the mash tun as a pre-heat.
The remaining 3 gallons of strike water is heated ready to mash.
The water is drained from the mash tun and the grain added.
Strike water is pumped (slowly) from the kettle through the mash tun tap to the grain.
Grain is given a good stir making sure there are no lumps.
Mash tun tap connected to the HERMS tank (via a pump) and wort is pumped (slowly) through the heat exchange and back to the mash tun.
Every 15 minutes, give the mash a good stir.
During the mash, transfer the remaining 5 gallons of water back to the kettle and heat to sparge temperature (75C).
At the end of the (first) mash, transfer the wort to the (now empty) fermentation bucket.
Refill the mash tun with half the remaining water, stir and recirculate through HERMS.
Stir after 15 minutes.
After a further 15 minutes transfer the wort to the fermentation bucket.
Refill the mash tun with the remaining water, stir and recirculate through HERMS.
Stir after 15 minutes.
Transfer the wort from the fermentation bucket back to the now empty kettle and start heating for the boil.
Transfer the last of the wort from the mash tun to the kettle (squeezing the grain bag to extract as much wort as possible) 15 minutes after stirring.
Once the wort is boiling, add hops according to recipe.
15 minutes from the end of the boil add 1/2 protofloc tablet (crushed) and start recirculating through whirlpool.
At the end of the boil, connect chiller circuit and start cooling while continuing to whirlpool.
When cooled, stop whirlpooling and leave for an hour before transferring wort to the now sanitised fermentation bucket (take sample for SG measurement).
Add yeast and fit lid.
Move bucket to fermentation fridge.
That’s what I do and it seems to work. Cheers
Coming to the end of my Kohatu pale ale. Fortunately the following brew (with the failed dry hopper) is just finishing conditioning (a bit early, but who’s counting ). First pour looks good and tastes good. Might even say, in those imortal words that some of us might remember, and by golly it does you good!
). First pour looks good and tastes good. Might even say, in those imortal words that some of us might remember, and by golly it does you good!
My Abbey beer transferred to the Barrelater at the weekend freeing up the fermentation fridge so I thought I’d make a boring 4.5% ish single hop pale ale. So 4 kg of pilsner malt and 300 grams of carapils were added to my pre-heated mash tun.
3 gallons of strike water (treated with campden tablet) at 72C were added through the mash tun tap....
...and that was mashed in to make sure all was well mixed.
..my mash might appear a bit on the wet side to some but it does make wort circulation easier. I give it a stir every 15 minutes.
...I did say it was a bit on the wet side! My mash temperature was 67C maintained by my HERMS tank.
After the first 1 hour mash the wort was transferred to an empty fermentation bucket yielding just under 2 gallons of wort at 1.067.
A further 2.5 gallons of water at 72C was added to the mash tun, stirred at the start and again after 15 minutes. After 30 minutes the second wort was transferred to the fermentation bucket.
The last 2.5 gallons of water was added, stirred in and mashed for 30 minutes as before.
While the third mash was underway the wort was transferred from the fermentation bucket to the kettle and the burner lit to get the boil started.
The third wort was transferred to the kettle and the grain bag in the mash tun given a squeeze.
3 gallons of strike water (treated with campden tablet) at 72C were added through the mash tun tap....
...and that was mashed in to make sure all was well mixed.
..my mash might appear a bit on the wet side to some but it does make wort circulation easier. I give it a stir every 15 minutes.
...I did say it was a bit on the wet side! My mash temperature was 67C maintained by my HERMS tank.
After the first 1 hour mash the wort was transferred to an empty fermentation bucket yielding just under 2 gallons of wort at 1.067.
A further 2.5 gallons of water at 72C was added to the mash tun, stirred at the start and again after 15 minutes. After 30 minutes the second wort was transferred to the fermentation bucket.
The last 2.5 gallons of water was added, stirred in and mashed for 30 minutes as before.
While the third mash was underway the wort was transferred from the fermentation bucket to the kettle and the burner lit to get the boil started.
The third wort was transferred to the kettle and the grain bag in the mash tun given a squeeze.
Boil got under way. 25 grams of Cascade hop pellets were added after 30 minutes. Another 25 grams were added after 15 minutes along with a half of a crushed protofloc tablet. 20 grams of hop pellets were added after flame out and the wort temperature was under 90C. Chill circuit was connected and turned ON after 20 minutes.
When the temperature had reduced to around 30C a bag of ice was added to the chiller bucket.
After 30 minutes the wort temperature was down to 22C with an ambient temperature of 20.8C
I left the chilled wort in the kettle for an hour before transferring to a fermentation bucket and pitching the yeast, BRY-97.
The fermicular railway was assembled in readiness to transfer the fermentation bucket to the fridge...
After the wort had been transferred a nice little pile was left in the middle of the kettle...
Fermentation bucket was moved to the railway..
...and moved to the fridge...
...and connected to my CO2 collection plumbing...
SG of the wort ended up at 1.043 by my reckoning yielding a brewhouse efficiency of 76%.
Love it, and you can't beat a boring old cascade pale ale. 
