Newbie with questions on size!!

[fairbrew]

Hi all, I have limited experiance of brewing, but plan to turn my now defunct fish house into a brew house.
I have always thought "get the biggest you can "to save upgrading after the initial start-up. Wondering if this goes with brewing?
If 70l hlt and boiler were used would there be any drawbacks at first doing 25 ltr brews as it would be silly to make larger brews and waste it when it all goes wrong?
As with the mash tun if a small brew is done in a big vessel would the grain be spread too thin to give a good bed?
Start up is still a few months down the line but trying to read up as much as possible so as not to make mistakes on choice of equipment.
Any input welcome , cheers!!

 

[Frisp]

Im in the process of building a brewery with 100l boiler and a huge mash tun,,,

Halfway through the build it has struck me that my 25L setup allowed me to brew more different recipes more often... A 60L brewlength restricts me to the number of brews I can do in a year. Im either going to have to drink myself to oblivion or acquire an awful lot of pisshead mates... and I have enough of them already...

If I was to start this process all over again, I would go stainless with a thermobox and setup for 25L brewlengths... I would still setup with all the toys, pumps, Herms, SS false bottoms and Pids everywhere... with 40l conical fermenters .....

 

[fairbrew]

I understand what you are saying and was having similar thoughts on size .Thanks

 

[Frisp]

If you wanted to puttwo batches through back to back you could in theory have your second batch mashing while your first batch is boiling, then bang them both into the fermenter.....

Jeez Im almost tempted to sell the big kit ..........

 

[fairbrew]

Thinking about keeping the 70ltr and boiler as there is not a great jump in price and would still be ok with smaller batchs, is that correct? But going for a 40 ltr thermo mash tun .How does that sound? Now all I need is the best place to get the gear :hmm:

 

[Darcey]

I went for the 70L nordic pot boiler... so I can still do 23-5L batches easily but can brew up to 55L with out worry about a boil over. So if a want a big batch its no problem. If I decided I want to upgrade in the future my 70L can become my HLT. I am going to get a 50L thermos soon and with that I could do bigger batches than 70.

D

 

[fairbrew]

Thanks for the info , Darcey.
I like the look of the pots from the Malt Miller (keep the sponsers happy!) as I dont fancy drilling them and can have the taps and sight glass fitted. Is fitting a probe style thermometer to these easy?
Where would you source a 50l thermo from ? the biggest I can see is 45.
Can we not get the round ones like in America over here ?

 

[Frisp]

I got my stuff from Nordic Optical as does most shiney freaks on here. do a search for them and you will find a link somewhere that takes you to their french ebay store... Crackin value and you will also find the thermoboxes that we all talk about for a mashtun..

 

[fairbrew]

Found the store and do like the look of them. How easy is it to drill for taps etc? Does anyone provide this service? If not is there a link to a supplier of taps etc

 

[Darcey]

Here, I just followed this!

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1418

The malt miller pots ARE the nordic pots its prob worth it if you dont want to cut the holes and stuff yourself.

 

[fairbrew]

Hmm , that is a really good guide. I think I may be able to do that ,as I intend to use gas so less holes to cut.
Is the tap fitted on the 60l thermo box as it does not show on picture?