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LG's Old Pest Brewery - setting up from scratch...


Lord Gruntfuttock

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nice man! Are you adding any more hops close to bottling time?

 

As a precaution, I put a block of wood under the middle section of the shelf to help stop it falling in, 20+kg on the racking is quite a bit

 

now you just need another fridge as a keg fridge, once you get sick of bottling

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Just hopstand additions for this brew, been looking at some hazys with dry hopping, but since it's been cold lately I'll prob do a stout next, seems more appropriate...

Also had to use a shorter 3-piece air lock as the s-shaped ones were too tall.

And yeah the rack groans a bit with the load on. A support is on the cards... :)

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Nice build :), a lot prettier then my setup.

With the temp probe I use a thermowell into my fermentor and use the exact temp of the wort to heat/cool, another option is to tape the probe to the side of the fermentor with some insulation. Not a must but have found it gives me more accurate temp readings and notes etc.

Wort looks nice and clear what did you use to chill?

Care to share the recipe?

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Yeah have seen the temp probe taped to the fermenter while Barrying about on brew forums, looks a simple improvement, cheers.
I had the week off and it was a good chance to tidy the shed up a bit, plus I like to have places for stuff. Just chilled by running the hose through the immersion chiller, pretty rapidly cooled things down, but I'll do it a bit longer next time. Don't know how sustainable that method'll be given we're on tank water though. Might look at an ice-bath/pump setup, or using the fire tank water that never gets used.

Regards clarity, I chucked half a whirfloc tablet in with about 10 mins of boil to go. Not sure if I needed it but wanted to try it out. Recipe is just a Brewfather Sierra Nevada clone with different hops. I'll post it up if it works out ok. Wanted something easy and drinkable for first brew, will get more adventurous as we go. Will prob bottle next week then when they're conditioning I can put down something different. It is quite a consuming hobby... :)

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If you are on tank water, I would look at just pumping it back into the tank (assuming you use clean/foodgrade hoses and keep your chiller clean) fire tank would be less worry if its not going to be drunk, doubt the volume of beer you are cooling will impact the temp of a large tank much. I used to run my still with up-to 4800w of elements and used to cool that with a 3000L tank that was just feeding water through via gravity. (barely heated up even over a couple of hours)

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  • 3 weeks later...

When your stable of fermentation fridges grows (it likely will), a cheap and effective heater is a single bed electric blanket, $15 from the warehouse and has just enough power to step a ferment to finishing temp

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35 minutes ago, KP_wag said:

When your stable of fermentation fridges grows (it likely will), a cheap and effective heater is a single bed electric blanket, $15 from the warehouse and has just enough power to step a ferment to finishing temp

i found waterbed heaters (if one can still buy then) are decent as they are easy to clean. lecky blanky get manky quicky

 

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Heating's easy. It's finding a $20 fridge that cools that's the hard part. :)

Here's a tip tho. I was looking at wiring up a 3 pin plug to some flex (as they cut the plug off at the tip) but you can buy a 2m extension cord for like $2.90. Cut the socket end off and connect to appliance, done...

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14 hours ago, Lord Gruntfuttock said:

Heating's easy. It's finding a $20 fridge that cools that's the hard part. :)

Here's a tip tho. I was looking at wiring up a 3 pin plug to some flex (as they cut the plug off at the tip) but you can buy a 2m extension cord for like $2.90. Cut the socket end off and connect to appliance, done...

I do this all the time when I need a lead

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