Building a dedicated brewing space in my garden...

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Thanks :)

Getting there of course. The electrics are done (just hanging back off the wall in that video for painting), and I'm not actually doing any plumbing in this first build – budget had to be stopped somewhere so I will have to do a bit of water lugging in the early days. Ceiling should only take a few hours when I have James back to help, and then another couple of days of internal fitting I think. Still want to do the first brew (with my old kit) in March.

Unfortunately I realised I'd rushed the edit and upload last night, and left a big bit of music in that was meant to be deleted. It's just re-uploading now, so the video will be live again below in a mo once it's finished. Shame to lose those early views, but that's how it goes:

 
I never "lug water" 'cos it's heavy and I'm old!

For the Cooler I connect it up to a garden hose and run the excess down the back of the garden.

For stuff that isn't going to be boiled (i.e. Strike and Sparge Water) I use a reinforced "food grade" clear plastic hose. (As a tip, sanitise this hose with StarSan before storage. I failed one time in the Spring when we went over to France for three months. When we got back I could see the black mould that had grown on the inside!)

I brew outside so I also bought a small low level trolley from Lidl that I use to transport heavy stuff to and from the garage. i.e. the filled Boiler from the garage and the filled FV to the garage. The distance is only about 15 metres but a Boiler with 30 litres of wort in it weighs about 32kgs and it's awkward to hump it without spillage.

With regard to plumbing in your shed, I sincerely hope that you installed drainage even if you didn't put in a water supply. Apart from the brewing, bottles need rinsing and washing, gear needs cleaning and rinsing etc. At the moment, all it would cost is a few bends and a length of plastic drainage pipe to the outside. A connection to your drains or a soak-away can be installed later; but doing it when everything is in place is much harder!

On the subject of water, after doing the maths (and having a row with the thieving swine that provide water to my house) I changed over from a metered supply to an annual payment rather than paying "Standing Charge plus Per Metric Ton of Water". The water company fought tooth and nail to keep me on a metered contract so I presume that they were making more money that way. For me, even if it isn't a cheaper option, it's much better because I don't have to worry about how much I am using as it's already paid for!

Good luck with the build.:gulp:
 
Anyone been waiting for a bus video? Well here's TWO coming at ONCE:





Enjoy!
 
Yeah I have all of that (BM vented lid) but what I’ve found is that you get condensate forming in the pipework before it’s extracted and also forming around the extractor as the volume of steam is really quite high.

I’m looking at steam condensers using cold water like you get on professional systems.

Any other ideas anyone?


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Hoddy,if you're still having venting issues. I'm now having great success with ventilation just by using a table top fan (about 16"). I've got it positioned so that it blows across the top of the BM domed lid in the direction of the open shed door. Works brilliantly, I just have to put a fence up to stop the chickens getting in.
 
Hoddy,if you're still having venting issues. I'm now having great success with ventilation just by using a table top fan (about 16"). I've got it positioned so that it blows across the top of the BM domed lid in the direction of the open shed door. Works brilliantly, I just have to put a fence up to stop the chickens getting in.

This works brilliantly. I looked at all the fancy solutions and then picked up a freestanding fan from eBay for a fiver and it's simple and it works. It also means access via the hood is not restricted.
 
This is some interesting ideas chaps. As you can see I’ve adopted this method

IMG_6258.JPG


But using a fan with the domed lid is defo worth a try. I’ll do that next time [emoji1303]

Ideally I’d like to be able to come up with a system that I can use in an indoor situation in the end, but this would be an interesting experiment.

Thanks for the idea.


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It's been a while, but the brewery is nearing phase 1 'completion' now. We'll be brewing live tomorrow night (7pm BST) on YouTube, the video will show up below but feel free to go subscribe so you get a notification (and also because it helps us out a lot in the long run!)

 
This is some interesting ideas chaps. As you can see I’ve adopted this method

View attachment 13556

But using a fan with the domed lid is defo worth a try. I’ll do that next time [emoji1303]

Ideally I’d like to be able to come up with a system that I can use in an indoor situation in the end, but this would be an interesting experiment.

Thanks for the idea.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I used to use a fan in my garage until it conked out and i returned to a steam room. Much prefer your solution.
 
I used to use a fan in my garage until it conked out and i returned to a steam room. Much prefer your solution.

It’s just enough to direct the steam out of the building. I’ve found if you double the length you get the steam condensing and running down the inside of the pipe all over the place.


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