The Chaos that is a Buffers Brewery brew day

[Buffers brewery]

Fixed….

….. for now.

 

[Buffers brewery]

As an aside, I don’t know how you do it but I found drilling a hole in the thin stainless steel wall of my HLT a right pain! Couldn’t get a pilot hole started for love nor money. Ended up using a masonry nail to punch a hole in the wall (from the inside) so I could drill a hole big enough to get a step drill in to enlarge it to use a 40mm Qmax cutter. Bit of a palaver but got there in the end.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

I've used the tank cutter from Kegland, but that only cuts a 32mm hole , pretty neat job on the flimsy SS.
I used the diamond bit on a dremel to get started then a metal cutting drill for the pilot hole. Completely agree with you that cutting the SS is a right pain. Welding it is probably even more fiddly. But not in my skill set at all.

 

[Buffers brewery]

A misty and murky brew day morning here on the south coast. A brewer’s got do what a brewer has to do when there’s an empty keg in the brew shed. Planning a high octane Mandarina Bavarian pale ale today. 5kg Maris Otter pale malt, 270g Melanoidin (user-upper) and 580g Carapils (last in the bag).
After pre-heating the mash tun and plumbing, three and a half gallons of treated water were underlet into the grain in the mash tun…

After a good stir the wort gets recirculated through the HERMS circuit to bring the mash temperature up to 66C.

After an hour mashing and occasional stirring the wort was transferred to the boiler and four gallons of treated water at 70C was added to the mash tun followed by a good stir (my version of lautering).
(to be continued...having problems uploading pics)

 

[RoomWithABrew]

looking very good. Standing by.

 

[Buffers brewery]

(continued)
Had a bit of a technical issue last night so posting was interrupted.
This is my version of lautering…

 

[Buffers brewery]

Transferred 30 litres of wort to the boiler

and brought it to a foaming boil

I’m considering giving it a bit of a skim at the start of the boil to get rid of the hot-break.
While the boil was underway I heated a few gallons of treated water in my (now repaired) HLT and circulated it through my CFC to sanitise it before chilling the boiled wort.

After chilling to 80C I added 60g Mandarina Bavarian pellets for 20 minutes then continued chilling down to 20C. Left for an hour to settle.

 

[Buffers brewery]

After the wort had settled it was time to transfer to my fermenter. Using my upgraded hand peristaltic pump to prime my syphon,

the wort was successfully transferred and the yeast, Verdant IPA, pitched.

Fermenter was moved to the brew fridge set at 20C. OG 1.062

Time for a beer…