Buying a house....and more importantly a brewery

[phirleh]

Curious...why do you use 2-3 carboys?

Overlap, when you have something in a long ferment you don't want to tie up your only carboy for a month or two. I'm assuming many people also do primary fermentations in a carboy, so if you do a secondary, you need at least another one to rack into.

[markaberrant]

Overlap, when you have something in a long ferment you don't want to tie up your only carboy for a month or two. I'm assuming many people also do primary fermentations in a carboy, so if you do a secondary, you need at least another one to rack into.

Yup, you'll need at least 2 carboys just to do a single batch, and at least 3 carboys if you want to have more than 1 going at a time.

At the moment, I've got 6 full carboys, and I'm brewing a witbier on Sunday.

[icemachine]

brewing outside is a great idea. But unfortunately I do not have a garage and I would like to brew 365 days a year.
I will be brewing is a section of my unfinished basement, but I am going to lay down some basic tile to make any spills or clean up a breeze. The shelving and the hot and cold water is already piped into the adjacent unfinished laundry room so I already have everything there.
I'm really concerned about how to do this cost-effectively, so what kind of brewing setup do you use?

Forget tile, go with the stuff you paint onto the concrete that gives you a waterproof/oilproof surface. Its similar to whats used on the floor of our test lab and really makes clean up a breeze and can take a fair amount of punishment

[dutchcanuck]

Icemachine...That is an amazing idea! I hadn't even thought of that. I've been too focused on other things. any suggestions on a product?

So the other things (haven't finalized the heating system, but leaning towards electric)....alright, so a large pot for boiling water, cooler for mash lauter tun, re-use the pot to heat water for sparging, then carboys...or buckets for fermenting? Am I on the right track so far?

So, next step, how many of you guys keg and force carbonate? Or is bottle conditioning the way to go?

[icemachine]

I bottle because being in an apartment I just don't have room for a keg fridge.

For the floor coating at work we used these guys, http://www.florock.net/floroshop.htm but they came in and applied it, not sure you'd want to pay for that. Our church basement was recently redone using the Home Hardware Beauty-tone version and six months with no problems.

[JimC]

Since you are looking for input, this is my 10gal, 2 tier brewhouse in a nut-shell. All of the kegs are wrapped in insulation and have the tops cut out.

Infrastructure:
60A, 240V GFCI into garage load center
Kill switch
BCS-460 controller
2x 40A SSR's with heatsinks
Hose bib
Driveway "drain"
Big ass bench
Pump /w camlocks

Hoses, etc

Kettle:
Used 15.5gal keg
False Bottom, dip tube, ball valve, camlock
Sight glass
Temp probe
5500 watt ULD element

HLT / HERMS:
Used 15.5gal keg
Dip tube, ball valve, camlock
Sight glass
Temp probe
5500 watt element
HERMS coil w/ camlocks
Temp probe on HERMS output

MLT:
Used 15.5gal keg
False bottom, dip tube, ball valve, camlock
Temp probe
Gravity fed sparge arm w/ camlock

[JimC]

Keep the facts flowing my fellow home brewers!

Another question, what is the general consensus on primary and secondary fermentations? I've heard that you can get away with just doing a single fermentation for ales. What do you guys think?

I often just primary basic ales. With a careful racking they are usually clear after the first glass or two from the keg.

That said, I have a good dozen carboys for lagers and beers that need ageing such as lambics.

[dutchcanuck]

Wow...JimC in my lowly opinion that is a very serious home setup! Now I don't need anything that hard core, I just want to tinker a little bit in my basement and brew a couple corny kegs a month in my basement. But I might miniaturize certain aspects of your setup for my purposes.

Next in my series of oddball brewing questions; is their an effective way to chill wort that does not necessitate a huge amount of water loss? I hate to waste water and I am also thinking of my water bill.

So here comes the dutch in me Anyone have spare parts or equipment they don't use anymore that they would like to sell? I am trying to put this together on tight budget so I figure it could be a win-win situation (and it doesn't hurt to ask). You get rid of some stuff cluttering up your place and money, and I start building a brewery.

Thanks for all the post so far guys!

[Derek]

Thinking outside the box...
http://hyperfox.info/no-chill.htm

Though with sanitizing another container, I'm not sure water use is THAT much less.

[dutchcanuck]

Hmmm....interesting idea. IS there any reason why you couldn't ferment in one of these? drill a hole in the top and fit a bung with an airlock?

[phirleh]

Wow...JimC in my lowly opinion that is a very serious home setup! Now I don't need anything that hard core, I just want to tinker a little bit in my basement and brew a couple corny kegs a month in my basement. But I might miniaturize certain aspects of your setup for my purposes.

Next in my series of oddball brewing questions; is their an effective way to chill wort that does not necessitate a huge amount of water loss? I hate to waste water and I am also thinking of my water bill.

So here comes the dutch in me Anyone have spare parts or equipment they don't use anymore that they would like to sell? I am trying to put this together on tight budget so I figure it could be a win-win situation (and it doesn't hurt to ask). You get rid of some stuff cluttering up your place and money, and I start building a brewery.

Thanks for all the post so far guys!

You could build a whirlpool chiller and use two pumps. One pump circulates your wort out of the bottom of your kettle into the top of the whirlpool and the other circulates water from a cooler that you can keep cool with a bunch of 2 liter bottles of ice. Your water bill might not be high, but your pump and copper budget will be. I'm going to try the no chill method, it's very inexpensive, plus you can "bank" wort to ferment at a later date.

[phat matt]

if you want to get a cheap pot and burner. I would suggest checking out Canadian tire or walmart for a turkey fryer set. This way you can get a big enough pot to do full boils, a element, and they come with a thermometer most of the time. This is the set up i use and i picked one up for $80. This will definetly start you on the right foot. Also if your around the st kitts area id suggest checking out vin bon brew your own on glenridge ave. they will have everything you need to get brewing. The only downside is they dont have a very wide selection.

[dutchcanuck]

Well the stress is over and the house is purchased. I have therefore guaranteed my brewing space. Now after doing some research this is what I'm thinking....if I am missing something buy all means let me know.

1. 7.5g hot liquor tank/ brew kettle
a. This is going to be heated by a a heatstick.

2. MLT is going to be a typical cooler with a stainless steel braid for filtering.

3. Undecided on the full immersion wort chiller

4. food grade buckets for fermenting

5. corny kegs for dispensing.

So I will heat the water to my striking temperature using a DIY heat stick in my 7.5G pot. I will then mash this water into my MLT. the kettle will then be empty and I can heat my sparging water and transfer to a food grade bucket. After 60 minutes I will recirculate my mash, and sparging back INTO the 7.5g pot. I will then bring it to a boil using the Heat stick. Once I have boiled my wort, added hops, I will cool it down, and transfer to my primary fermenter and pitch my yeast. From here I am undecided to move to secondary or just let it sit in the primary until I am ready to transfer to my corny keg for forced CO2 carbonation and then being consumed....by me and friends.

Does this sound like a workable setup? I would prefer to spend a few hours every or every other Sunday morning brewing 5 gallons of beer than moving up to 10 gallon brews. I used to do 13 gallon brews and by the time i was half way through it wanted something different. The only other brewing I did was at an all grain BYO place, so is there something that i am overlooking now that I am doing it at home?

[markaberrant]

You want to brew 5 gallons every Sunday morning? That's a lot of beer! I hope you have lots of thirsty friends.

I brew 5-6 gallons about once a month, and it is plenty.

[dutchcanuck]

Well My thought process was 5 gallons should last me alone about 3 weeks. If I start having a few comrades over and sharing my brew...well then its going to even faster. Ideally, in the future I would like to have two taps for variety, and try brewing imperial stouts, duvel clones, and lagers that I want to TRULY lager. So I think brewing every other week is pretty forward thinking