BUILDING THE NEW ALL-GRAIN BREWERY

 

So the decision has been made and the project begins with a trip to the city dump [recycled steel division] and scrap metal dealer but there was also plenty of shiny new stuff to buy as well. At first the idea was to build a multi level stand for the three vessels but having built a small unit for another brewer utilizing a hoist we decided that was the way to go.

We purchased a cheap electric hoist and built a mechanism to raise and lower each platform independently - this way each vessel is at just the right height to feed into the next and all can be lowered to the ground for easy removal, cleaning etc.

The grain mill caused some concern. Trying to find a 'spare' motor with enough torque to grind grain was a drama and it took three different builds to get it right - if at first you don't succeed, try twice more and you'll get it. But then of course equipment wears out, so you start all over again. (see the photos at the end of the brewery section)

There were plenty of small things to manufacture to make things rolls and lift and generally make life easy. The motto in this workshop is, if it isn't easy then you shouldn't be doing it.

It's amazing but just when you think you've perfected everything you discover a design flaw or just a better way to do something... so we tweak things pretty much continuously and doubt we'll ever be finished.

You can keep up with all the new innovations at bluedog at the What's New pages or the Improvements and Things we've learned area further down this page.

So here it is, the Bluedog Self Contained brewing unit. a labour of love and a continual work-in-progress.

Building an All Grain Brewery

Stainless Surgery

Building a double kettle

Fitting outlet to the bottom

Recycling the top into a false bottom for the Mash Tun

Meshed false bottom with centre lifting tab. Is held in place with easy on/off stainless pin & wing-nut

The skeleton takes shape

Made stainless paddle & masher

HLT is fitted with 3600W element and external plug

Safety covering over element plug on the HLT

Temperature probe with digital readout fitted into side of HLT

Cut down brass fittings on right and made into a neat quick-connects on left - so things can be closer together on the stand

The chairman supervises our test brew

The unit was primed so the steel came up as good as new

Undercoated as well

A picture of concentration

We finally found a use for that bulk-buy of 'John-Deere-Green' machinery paint

HLT Scale. We use weight [1L=1kg] to measure water from HLT into mash tun or sparging

Hoist raises HLT and Mash Tun platforms to required heights during a brew. The heavy gauge chain locks their position

The Nasa burner with copper gas line, keeps gas bottle well away from brewery

Hoist, Silicone Hoses & power box

Drain out the bottom, works well on HLT & Mash Tun but not on the Kettle (see the comments below)

Ready to start - we work from Right to Left

Underletting from HLT to Mash Tun

Sparging - shows varying heights as required. The hoists rolls along the top bar and stops where needed

From kettle to cube

Stainless Steel 1/2 inch ID full bore WOG valves - that's the bling

Redesigned pick up tube in the kettle. Siphons well, using hop socks - leaves very little trub in kettle. Previous drain hole is filled with a homemade stainless plug, welded in. (see the comments below)

The Mash Tun had excessive heat loss [heavy grade stainless] so mods were needed.  Cut down & redesigned for ease of handling & cleaning. Added a 3 ring burner underneath

A large frying pan lid, filled with styrene makes a top - really helps in retaining heat [note to self - buy new pan for kitchen]

Into the sewing room for wrap-around insulated vests with quick release velcro tabs

Here he is... R2D2 back at work

And here he is after about 30 brews and after replacing the mashmaster with a Digital Temperature Probe (see comments below)

Close up of the digital readout on the cheap Ikea unit we purchased

This is the gas set up. Large bottle connects to permanent fitting on the brew stand, then copper lines to the Nasa burner

A brew day with the single kettle in place. Note the small gas bottle - it feeds the 3ring burner under the Mash Tun - if it's required.

Grain mill and Brewstand on a typical brew day. Everything is on wheels for convenience so we retain full use of the shed

Reworked double kettle, cut down to reduce the weight and added handles. Yes they're gorilla welds - ugly but strong.

Nice wide opening now on the double kettle

Made in the USA - Raw milk service grade silicone hose. 16mm ID, wall 5.5mm

IMPROVEMENTS.... We can always do something better

Isn't that better? A drain to dump into

What could be better than an awning to keep the hot sun off whilst we brew?

Awning is from Dometic - made for caravans, rolls up & out of the way & deploys in a few seconds.

What else does a brewer do? Make Pizza of course. Friday night it Pizza Night at Bluedog Brewing

House specialties are Meatlovers, Supreme & a Chicken, tomato mayonnaise & BBQ sauce - to die for

Altered gas lines with two valves allows separate or simultaneous use of Nasa burner and/or 3ring burner with one High Pressure regulator.

The house mysteriously needed a new freezer and the old one went to the brew-shed

It holds two fermenters and is used for crash chilling & gelatinising

Hardly Normal said freezers were on sale so we bought 2 of the 510 Litre Chesties and put a Tempmate on each.

1. Kettle can't have a drain out the bottom. The wort filled the drain pipe & when the nasa burner started it vaporised the tube and send a burnt smell through the entire kettle. Reworked the kettle and put drain out the side with siphon pipe as pictured above.

2. The stainless vessels are heavy and when filled with wet grain they weigh a ton. Time to cut them down and weld handles on the side for ease of handling.

3. You need a way to add extra heat to the mash tun. We can't rely on water at 99.9C from the HLT to raise grain temperature to Mash Out temp. So we modified the Mash Tun platform to take a 3 ring burner and we turn it on for short periods whenever we miss the temp. So rather than take on more water which leaves you short for sparging etc this is a quick way to keep on top of the recommended temperatures.

4. Bees love the gas line! When the Nasa burner seemed to run erratically and opened it but found nothing so we tracked back and found tiny bush bees had entered the copper gas line from an open plug (where the big gas bottle gets screwed to). Painful lesson. Found a cap to put on the gas line when not in use. We also plug up every silicone hose and vessel opening when we're finished brewing. We have wasps who love to build mud homes in any opening they can find.

5. The Mashmaster temperature probe is basically a piece of junk. It's big, yes that's nice but the numbers are still hard to read because the dial is so busy with info you don't need and it takes forever to respond to temperature changes, so you keep adding heat and then you're way over the mark.Also the screws holding the face in place fall out and it's completely useless. We changed to a cheap ($15) digital model from Ikea. It's easy to read, can be set with alarm so you know you've hit the mark and it's lightning fast to respond to temp changes.

6. That we need to run 2 gas burners simultaneously - On double brew days the Nasa burner is roaring under the kettle and we were using a small gas bottle with 3ring burner under the Mash Tun of the next brew. It was a pain maintaining a small gas bottle and tripping over the damn thing. It was time to rethink the gas lines.

The new set up is a High Pressure regulator on the gas bottle which connects to the brewstand with flexible hose. There is T in the copper pipe on the brewstand with new lines running to Nasa and 3ring burner. Each line has a valve so they can be used separately or simultaneously.

There's a picture above with yellow arrows showing the two valves.

There is a rubber gas hose to the 3 ring burner as the Mash Tun platform raises and lowers as required and the hose gives the required flexibility. The 3 ring burner also had each hole was drilled out to about 3mm to get more BTU's out of the burner.

7. When you brew beer - old fridges run the power bill up. So sometimes you have to bite the bullet and buy some decent refrigeration equipment and have the peace of mind you're maintaining temperatures and getting the most out of each brew.

8. That small cheap grain mills die..... The Marga Mill wasn't robust enough for our needs and after about 80 grain crushes the rollers were pretty well worn out. Time to invest in a more heavy duty Mashmaster Mill. Despite the advertising regarding the quality of workmanship this chinese made mill is a dissapointment. The gears are exposed and grain falls in and stops the crush - requires a guard to be made/purchased to negate this fault. Second the rollers were never finished after nurling and they run out by a mm. Makes it difficult to adjust for best crush. But it's in service now and adjusted as best it can be. See photos below of mill evolution.

9. Still not happy with the pick up tube in the double kettle..... The tube was taking wort from the centre and quite close to the bottom of the kettle. We did end up with a lot of trub in our cubes. Time to re-engineer it again. Cut off the long pick-up tube and angled it to the side of the kettle a little higher up. We can now leave up to 4L in the bottom... or can tip it and drain all that we want into the cube. (photo to come)

10. That's about all, we'll keep adding things if we need to change anything else.

Grain Mill

It was time to perfect the Grain mill. We were never going to crank the Marga Mill by hand and it seemed a bit tacky sticking a drill on it. We were sure we could do better than that!

First came an old sunbeam mix master. Sounded great and had good speed control but couldn't crush a grain to save its life.

The floor polisher was next - they must have plenty of grunt. Nope! once again - ground to a halt. Possibly if we had it running, then slowly added grain it may have worked but that was too inefficient for us.

With our third idea came success! A single phase 1/3h.p. motor and a pair of pulleys and a belt.... this thing will grind a rock into moon dust. Success at last. Ok, now we can paint the mill stand "green" as well.

Marga is worn out! Rollers are smooth grain doesn't feed. It was time to upgrade to the new SUX6000. Well actually to the new MashMaster from CraftBrewer.

So once again it was back to the drawing board. This mill requires such high torque that it couldn't be started with the grain in the hopper - but where there's a will, there's a way.

By making a slide out gate we fill the hopper with the gate closed and start the mill, then slowly open the gate and the grain just rockets through.

We also needed a way to inspect for signs of bug type visitors before use so a hinged plate opens and closes the top.

Here are the pictures of its evolution.

Send us an email

If you notice any errors on this page or would like any information, please contact us