Llanbrewer
Active Member
I'm back to brewing after a gap of well over 30 years. I started brewing as a teenager, wasn't able to do it at university, and then started going in earnest when I was married. Those were the days of the Boots kit and little else. One of my specialities was a totally undrinkable massively over strength stout, which was used for marinading and cooking. The high alcohol level was ideal for tenderising the toughest of meat. At my peak, I had three kegs, and something always on the go. Then came children.....
The brewery room was hijacked by my wife who insisted that babies had to have somewhere to sleep. Beer production was disrupted and consumption limited by the work necessity to do night call outs. The brewing withered away.
I'm now semi retired, and keen on moving back to an area, which if some of the papers are to be believed, has been transformed by superior kits.
I had a mega clean out of the greenhouse the other week and bought some racking in a kit which comes with a cover. I was going to use this outside in the summer to grow herbs, but it occurred to me that it might make an ideal brewing rack.
The main problem that I identified was that of temperature control. We have quite a large house and tend to keep it pretty cool and just up the temperature of rooms we are in a the time. Nowhere has a consistent 20 C. and my wife expressed a lack of enthusiasm for "having the house smelling like a brewery."
So, the greenhouse it had to be. I tested the racking system with weights to make sure it could hold 25 kg on one rack. I wrapped most of the exterior cover in bubblewrap and insulated the ground too. I used a piece of clean finished wood as a shelf an inch or so above the ground and installed a cheapo 2kw fan heater, and checked the temperature at the level where the FV would be. Even on maximum setting the temperature was only getting up to 15 C because the thermostat cut out after the heater had been on for a few seconds. I had to find some way of upping the temperature.
I was unsure as to the power output of the heaters used for home brew purposes, and decided to work on the safe side, by going to the local garden centre which has an aquarium section. A 200 watt heater promised to be able to maintain up to 34 C in a 200 litre tank. Assuming that the exterior ambient temperature (ie the room temperature) would be up to 20 C this seemed to promise ample capacity in that an uplift capability of 14 C for 200 litres should breeze through an uplift of 5 C for 23 litres.
I brewed up a Kent Ale kit yesterday, and put the FV in my new brewing chamber. I've got the fan heater for external ambient heating at the bottom of the chamber, and the immersion heater positioned a few inches from the bottom of the FV with the thermostat set at 21 C.
The maximum and minimum thermometer in the brewing chamber indicates a steady 20 C. I'm not too worried about an hour of sunlight lifting the temperature of the chamber to 30 C because the thermal capacity of the FV should be such that the short period of excessive heat will have little affect on the temperature of the liquor.
Where I will have a problem is maintaining 20 C for a couple of days in the pressure keg to get the secondary fermentation as I won't have the benefit of the immersion heater. I'm planning to get a beer belt and hope that this will give it the necessary uplift. Otherwise, I'd put the keg in the bath in the spare bathroom, and crank up the central heating there for a couple of days.
Obviously, this is all very experimental, and my first attempt for over 30 years, so any comments would be very welcome.
Please don't be afraid to tell me if I'm doing something badly wrong. I'd rather know now, than find out the hard way.
Thanks for reading this far anyway.
The brewery room was hijacked by my wife who insisted that babies had to have somewhere to sleep. Beer production was disrupted and consumption limited by the work necessity to do night call outs. The brewing withered away.
I'm now semi retired, and keen on moving back to an area, which if some of the papers are to be believed, has been transformed by superior kits.
I had a mega clean out of the greenhouse the other week and bought some racking in a kit which comes with a cover. I was going to use this outside in the summer to grow herbs, but it occurred to me that it might make an ideal brewing rack.
The main problem that I identified was that of temperature control. We have quite a large house and tend to keep it pretty cool and just up the temperature of rooms we are in a the time. Nowhere has a consistent 20 C. and my wife expressed a lack of enthusiasm for "having the house smelling like a brewery."
So, the greenhouse it had to be. I tested the racking system with weights to make sure it could hold 25 kg on one rack. I wrapped most of the exterior cover in bubblewrap and insulated the ground too. I used a piece of clean finished wood as a shelf an inch or so above the ground and installed a cheapo 2kw fan heater, and checked the temperature at the level where the FV would be. Even on maximum setting the temperature was only getting up to 15 C because the thermostat cut out after the heater had been on for a few seconds. I had to find some way of upping the temperature.
I was unsure as to the power output of the heaters used for home brew purposes, and decided to work on the safe side, by going to the local garden centre which has an aquarium section. A 200 watt heater promised to be able to maintain up to 34 C in a 200 litre tank. Assuming that the exterior ambient temperature (ie the room temperature) would be up to 20 C this seemed to promise ample capacity in that an uplift capability of 14 C for 200 litres should breeze through an uplift of 5 C for 23 litres.
I brewed up a Kent Ale kit yesterday, and put the FV in my new brewing chamber. I've got the fan heater for external ambient heating at the bottom of the chamber, and the immersion heater positioned a few inches from the bottom of the FV with the thermostat set at 21 C.
The maximum and minimum thermometer in the brewing chamber indicates a steady 20 C. I'm not too worried about an hour of sunlight lifting the temperature of the chamber to 30 C because the thermal capacity of the FV should be such that the short period of excessive heat will have little affect on the temperature of the liquor.
Where I will have a problem is maintaining 20 C for a couple of days in the pressure keg to get the secondary fermentation as I won't have the benefit of the immersion heater. I'm planning to get a beer belt and hope that this will give it the necessary uplift. Otherwise, I'd put the keg in the bath in the spare bathroom, and crank up the central heating there for a couple of days.
Obviously, this is all very experimental, and my first attempt for over 30 years, so any comments would be very welcome.
Please don't be afraid to tell me if I'm doing something badly wrong. I'd rather know now, than find out the hard way.
Thanks for reading this far anyway.
