Four Priests Brewery YouTube channel

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I am not trying to be a PITA but in my many years of driving trucks i have seen some bad stuff happen safe loading is big part of the job the weight the car can carry isn't really the issue you are driving with 350 Kg of unsecure load if you have to make an emergency stop you and your passenger will be crushed driving slowly is not going to stop that.
Honestly, it’s good to raise this so thanks.
I do agree, and there is certainly some risk. I was 35K miles on the road until 5 years ago and I’ve witnessed some unnecessary consequences of speed x load too. It’s purely down to not over extending our overheads until we can cover the cost from profit. But a van IS the next acquisition before any more major kit. We were looking at some last week.
 
While your concern is understandable, as someone who has used various unconventional vehicles as drays - there's few formats I'd rather shift 350kg in than a full firkin. Their weight means they have a pretty high static friction so it's hard to shift them unless they tip on one side, and their "squatness" and being squeezed into a car means that tends not to happen. It's more of an issue when there's fewer of them so you have less weight, but they have more room to rattle around - but even when full I always use a strap to keep them under control. I've never worried about them moving under an emergency stop, it was always more a concern about the suspension and some nearby speed bumps.

Having said that @chopps - if your boot has a lightweight cover over a spare wheel bay or similar, that knackers pretty quickly, it would be worth at least getting some ply or chipboard to give more support, and maybe something to help the lip getting dinged - a camping mat or similar that you can flap out when you're un/loading.
@Northern_Brewer I have a thick rubber bootliner plus a roll out bumper cover that covers the sill and hangs down outside when loading. It’s pretty grippy. And you’re right, if there’s a full load they are static and wedged in, but once the first few full casks are off, and replaced with empties we really take it easy even with the ratchet strap fitted. Van will come soon enough.
 
Talking of Sean, he's tweeted his energy quote, at 83.45p/kWh after government handout it's still about 3x the previous.

I can see why you wouldn't want to mess with the recipes for existing beers, but there might be scope for trying a 30 minute boil on a one-off beer where people's expectations are less fixed?
 
Even at those prices the saving would be minimal. His boiler uses 4 3kw elements, so 12kw at full power (and he doesn't use full power for the whole boil) so an hour's boil costs about £10. So a potential saving of only a fiver on 7 casks. Not worth it.
 
Talking of Sean, he's tweeted his energy quote, at 83.45p/kWh after government handout it's still about 3x the previous.
I can see why you wouldn't want to mess with the recipes for existing beers, but there might be scope for trying a 30 minute boil on a one-off beer where people's expectations are less fixed?
Don't you know that mentioning 30 minute boils is like throwing a grenade into a perfectly sensible, friendly thread and turning it into a war 😯
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Talking of Sean, he's tweeted his energy quote, at 83.45p/kWh after government handout it's still about 3x the previous.

I can see why you wouldn't want to mess with the recipes for existing beers, but there might be scope for trying a 30 minute boil on a one-off beer where people's expectations are less fixed?
yeah, saw that too. Wow.! I’m fixed at about 28p /kwh until February so just being patient about re fixing. Might be a mistake, lets see. Definitely a good idea to try a 30 on the next new beer. Cheers
 
Even at those prices the saving would be minimal. His boiler uses 4 3kw elements, so 12kw at full power (and he doesn't use full power for the whole boil) so an hour's boil costs about £10. So a potential saving of only a fiver on 7 casks. Not worth it.
it takes an hour at 12KW to get to boiling, post sparge, then the boil time. And on a double brew another 1h30 ish on full to heat the extra water needed for turn 2. So more like 2.5 hours at 12KW, and an hour roughly half at 12KW and half at 6KW at 28p/KWh. So about £12. So it’s true that it’s no biggie right now. If I was on Sean’s tariff it’s more like £35 and who knows how bad it might get. So I”m keen to explore!
 
it takes an hour at 12KW to get to boiling, post sparge, then the boil time. And on a double brew another 1h30 ish on full to heat the extra water needed for turn 2. So more like 2.5 hours at 12KW, and an hour roughly half at 12KW and half at 6KW at 28p/KWh. So about £12. So it’s true that it’s no biggie right now. If I was on Sean’s tariff it’s more like £35 and who knows how bad it might get. So I”m keen to explore!
As expected, most of the cost is raising the wort to the boil, not the actual boil itself (if my calculations are correct, 6kW for an hour at 28p is £1.68 (of the £12 total cost), so cutting in half would save you 84p). So a shorter boil won't really save you much (12p per firkin 🤣).

Definitely a good idea to try a 30 on the next new beer. Cheers
It would be interesting to hear your experiences if you do try and see what differences there are at brewery scales vs homebrew scales.
 
Back
Top