Thursday, February 6, 2014

My Electric Brewery


As usual, I got brewing in New Plymouth. I was motivated to try to set myself up with a cheap but revolutionary electrically powered brewery. I successfully construed my brewery for a total of $5. I used spare plastic 20L buckets from around the house and a big drum from work and purchased an old kettle from a second hand shop. I mounted the element from the kettle into one of the buckets as well as a ball lock valve that I already had and that became my brew kettle! I used the big drum as my mash tun for steeping the grains and made a false bottom to filter out the grains with a plastic tab at the bottom. It was great to be able to brew outside, except when it would start to rain half way through a brew. I had a few problems with the electrics relating to the element switching itself off. This was sorted out by removing the switch. I electrocuted myself once, and I was more careful after that. I made one bad beer, some o.k beer and some fantastic beers. My favorite being my award winning 'Sweet As - Rye Pale Ale', a beautiful Pale Ale and a wicked Stout. I was also very excited to finally use my plate heat exchanger which I purchased in the US. A flow of cool tap water passed through one side of the exchanger and the 90+ degree wort (unfermented beer) passing though the other. The result being, within minutes, a bucket full of cool wort ready for the yeast to be added and for fermentation to begin. For bottling my beer, I would grab swap-a-creates from the dump when we went with work to dispose of our green waste.
  
Got a solid boil going on while brewing my Stout.

2 comments:

  1. Sounds very technical until you look at the pictures! You did an amazing job with very little expense Thomas. I'm not quite sure I like the sound of you electrocuting yourself but you seem to have lived to tell the tale!

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    1. Yes I wasn't very impressed about being electrocuted either! I was very proud that I did make it work, even with the occasional technical hiccup.

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