Upgrading My Beer Making Stuff

[Penguin]

All of it 

I love a good scrounge.  I also enjoy the challenge of re-purposing items that have outlived their usefulness.

The milling station stand began life as a TV/VCR stand with a "Lazy Susan" bottom.  I took the turntable off of the bottom, stood it on it's side and the door where the video tapes went is now the lid.

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A big funnel will make an excellent hopper.  It has a nice flat on it so I cut a hole in the "lid" with a flycutter    and used a well-worn fermentation bucket with the bottom cut out for more capacity.  I cut a slot out underneath of where the rollers are mounted for the grain to fall into another bucket that will be there to catch the grist

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The frame and adjustment knobs for the roller assembly were made from some aluminum stock I had laying around for jig/fixture making.  The plastic guard is from a piece of Lexan that I found @ my work (Window & Door installation company) which I heated and bent on my brake.  The hole was cut with a hole saw.  I was skeptical about having a single hole in the center until I saw something similar on YouTube and it seemed to work just fine.

The rollers themselves are from some unknown material that I got from a local scrap yard with about 100 lbs of other crap for $1.  I know it is steel of some kind because it is magnetic.  The way it machined made me think it was stainless or nickel except that it was magnetic and very badly pitted/rusted.  It machined like crap, didn't cut a good chip and heated up quickly.  I wound up burning out all the indexable cutting edges of one of my triangle carbide inserts.  It started out 1.75" round, but by the time I got through the rust and pits down to a smooth surface, I finished out @ 1.5"  Cutting the knurls was even worse.  The bushings I purchased from McMaster-Carr, made from bronze and are a press-fit into the aluminum frame.  I didn't want to take the chance of grease or oil getting into the grist if sealed bearings decided to take a dump.  The gap is adjustable as the bushings on the movable roller were installed on an eccentric inside the knurled aluminum knobs and can be set with feeler guages. 

cutting the rollers  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y4BF2IcRXk

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Only one roller is driven, the other will spin from the action of the grains being pulled through the gap.  I was going to put a sprocket and bicycle chain on the driven roller, hook it to a stationary bike and make the wife pedal it.  When I pitched the idea to her, it was not received well.    

I have decided to re-purpose yet another item.  A car buffer which I had lent to a friend a while back who, in turn, broke the pad.  Since it was a cheapo Harbor Freight model, I couldn't get another pad.  I didn't look very hard for one either as I have no immediate plans to buff the "custom pinstripes" out of my Wrangler any time in the near or distant future.  It has a gear driven, right-angle head and adjustable speed which is perfect because optimum milling speed is 200-500 rpms and I didn't want to mess with a belt drive, sheaves and a guard for them. (Less $, too)  I am just going to mount the motor to the back of the unit and run a direct-drive shaft, perhaps through a pillow block with another bushing for rigidity.  I'll turn the shaft down, tonight.

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The last details will be casters for portability, cover the back, mount a door on the front and pot a port for the shop-vac to keep the dust down which can be explosive in a confined space, believe it or not.  Something as simple as a spark from the buffer motor could do it.  Besides, milling in the brewhouse is not a good idea because the dust from un-mashed grain contains bacteria that can cause infections in beer that hasn't fermented yet.

The following is an example of that, except this was an intentional Lactobacillus infection that I introduced by leaving the mash @ ~ 100 deg. F after the mash was finished and tossing in a handful of un-mashed grains and leaving it sit for a few hours.  I was making a Berliner Weiss.

mmmm     

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What's that puke inducing rot at the bottom?  Did it just move?

-Penguin

[VonMessa]

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Hefe... this tasted really good coming out of fermentation.  I hope it tastes better after some bottle conditioning. 

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My rig, 10 gallon cooler, 7 gallon pot.  Pump s run by a drill (lol) march pump hopefully for fathers day....

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HERMs coil.  I ran it tighter at first, transfer was not great.  I hugged the walls of my pot and now it runs good.  This will be my chiller as well.  First run on this today with a new belgium abbey ale clone 

 

Awesome!  I love it when a (beer) plan comes together.

 

[VonMessa]

What's that puke inducing rot at the bottom?  Did it just move?

-Penguin

I thought you were one of the smarter ones here... 



Active lactobacillus fermentation, so yes, it was moving and smelled worse than vomit, feet, catfish and ass...

It was also very tasty when finished 

[Penguin]

I thought you were one of the smarter ones here... 

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Active lactobacillus fermentation, so yes, it was moving and smelled worse than vomit, feet, catfish and ass...

It was also very tasty when finished 

Oh, aha.  So the grosser it smells in the vat the better it tastes in the glass?  I apologize for my ignorance, I'm only halfway through my highschool biology class.

-Penguin

[VonMessa]

Oh, aha.  So the grosser it smells in the vat the better it tastes in the glass?  I apologize for my ignorance, I'm only halfway through my highschool biology class.

-Penguin

Only the lacto fermentations.  This style (berliner weiss), and a lot of Belgian styles, which traditionally relied on wild yeasts from the region.  One can now buy these strains from a yeast distributer these days.

I actually let this one go a bit to long (notice the fuzzies).  Also, fermentation is usually carried out in a different vessel than the one you would mash in.  This fermenter is usually sanitized to  ensure that the yeast you have chosen starts to metabolize the wort(unfermented beer) before any wild yeast or bacteria do.

[dirtdart]

I was a bit concerned that the HERMs could not function as a wort chiller.  I was wrong.  I thought it was roughly as fast as my immersion chiller.  About 20 minutes to go from boiling hot to 70-80ish.   You said you use a plate chiller.  How long does it take to spit out your 10 gallons?  I am assuming the flow rate is slow to cool the wort sufficiently.  Am eyeballing my next (post march pump) move....

[VonMessa]

I was a bit concerned that the HERMs could not function as a wort chiller.  I was wrong.  I thought it was roughly as fast as my immersion chiller.  About 20 minutes to go from boiling hot to 70-80ish.   You said you use a plate chiller.  How long does it take to spit out your 10 gallons?  I am assuming the flow rate is slow to cool the wort sufficiently.  Am eyeballing my next (post march pump) move....

5-10 minutes, tops  

I can get down to about 60 degrees in 10 min (Cold tap water , even in summer), faster if I want to pitch at ale temps all by changing the flow.  

I'll never look back.  I don't have it in line with the mash tun, though.  Just between BK to fermenter output.  That way there is no chance for it to get clogged with mash debris.

[Nefarious]

Big Brown Ale is completed! 1 Week Primary... 2 Weeks Secondary... 3 Weeks Bottle Conditioning...

Rejoice Comrades! The battle for production has been won! And it is delicious!

The picture is two of the three of my give away six packs that i promised to my friends with a close up of the hanging label I created. Not to worry though... I have 2x 5 gallons in secondary of the same recipe with different Ale yeasts.



On the label is pictured my favorite drinking buddy whose nickname was used for the name of this brew.

[VonMessa]

Big Brown Ale is completed! 1 Week Primary... 2 Weeks Secondary... 3 Weeks Bottle Conditioning...

Rejoice Comrades! The battle for production has been won! And it is delicious!

The picture is two of the three of my give away six packs that i promised to my friends with a close up of the hanging label I created. Not to worry though... I have 2x 5 gallons in secondary of the same recipe with different Ale yeasts.

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On the label is pictured my favorite drinking buddy whose nickname was used for the name of this brew.

 

[dirtdart]

mmmmm.....

Just finished the New Belgium Abby Ale clone... very nice I thought, good recipe in BYO.  This week I am going to fire up that scotch ale, grain bill comes in today.  Now that I have a march pump it is on like donkey kong.  I just hope I did not overdo the peat piece.  I want subtle fire/dirt, but not quite laphroig levels of peat.  Anyway, cheers brew buddies.   

[VonMessa]

mmmmm.....

Just finished the New Belgium Abby Ale clone... very nice I thought, good recipe in BYO.  This week I am going to fire up that scotch ale, grain bill comes in today.  Now that I have a march pump it is on like donkey kong.  I just hope I did not overdo the peat piece.  I want subtle fire/dirt, but not quite laphroig levels of peat.  Anyway, cheers brew buddies.   

Oh, hell yeah!   

[dirtdart]

Big Brown Ale is completed! 1 Week Primary... 2 Weeks Secondary... 3 Weeks Bottle Conditioning...

Rejoice Comrades! The battle for production has been won! And it is delicious!

The picture is two of the three of my give away six packs that i promised to my friends with a close up of the hanging label I created. Not to worry though... I have 2x 5 gallons in secondary of the same recipe with different Ale yeasts.

(Image removed from quote.)

On the label is pictured my favorite drinking buddy whose nickname was used for the name of this brew.

I love the lables Nef.... brew sounds damn good as well

[Nefarious]

I love the lables Nef.... brew sounds damn good as well

I'll post the recipe when I get home.

[dirtdart]

Ok so my manifold keeps getting plugged up in my mash tun.  I think j am going to go with a false bottom instead. This will mean adding water volume to my mash. The books say a quart a pound, will it make a difference if there is a gallon or two below the mash. I do recirculate my mash through a HERMs so I need good flow. Though Herr beir ubermeisters?

[Babalonian]

Ok so my manifold keeps getting plugged up in my mash tun.  I think j am going to go with a false bottom instead. This will mean adding water volume to my mash. The books say a quart a pound, will it make a difference if there is a gallon or two below the mash. I do recirculate my mash through a HERMs so I need good flow. Though Herr beir ubermeisters?

Pictures would help, particularly of the problem area(s).