Capital ideas

[Rossa]

I've had a few ideas. Dangerous, I hear you say.

How about having a brewing set up in tog on a permanent basis. I have some big pots we could convert to a boiler & mash tun. We could leave it onsite and use for demos and communal brews. For those who don't have the big equipment this would also be handy.

Secondly - what about an order of capital brewers t-shirts before Xmas. I'll ask Tom about prices and min order numbers.

I was also talking to Geoff last night and he would be open to looking after us in the future if we wanted a venue.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

One idea I have had in the past is a communal brew kit. If you get a very large boiler, say 100L / 200L, but use No Chill cubes (say around 10L plastic gerry cans), you can brew big on site, but split the wort up for fermentation offsite, the next day or so.

You can brew seriously on the cheap then, as large hop buys start to be feasible, as you can use up a lot of hops in one go.

In theory, this can be commercial too - selling hopped wort.

[Damien M]

Shane, I think yer missing a couple of zeros there!! 

[Padraic]

I was also talking to Geoff last night and he would be open to looking after us in the future if we wanted a venue.

Barry is also keen to have us!

How about having a brewing set up in tog on a permanent basis. I have some big pots we could convert to a boiler & mash tun. We could leave it onsite and use for demos and communal brews. For those who don't have the big equipment this would also be handy.

Secondly - what about an order of capital brewers t-shirts before Xmas. I'll ask Tom about prices and min order numbers.

I would love to see us have a brewkit at tog, or any such other clubhouse that might suit our needs... This might be on teh cards as we will now have Shiny and Jules as members of Tog. If it was a runner, I could probably justify the €500 per year it is to become a member, but it is a bit pricey for using the place once a month!

I'm all for a batch of tshirts, have a chat with Tom and see what he can do and start a seperate thread! (I'll miss being the only one who wears our club tshirt! I'll need to get a new one done up!)

@TheSumOFAllBeers - I don't see why we'd need to go no chill, we could easily have a plate chiller inline before the wort made it to the jerry cans! (A plate chiller isn't as expensive when you have loads of people paying the bill!

[irish_goat]

Or split the hot wort up and use a couple of regular wort chillers.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

@TheSumOFAllBeers - I don't see why we'd need to go no chill, we could easily have a plate chiller inline before the wort made it to the jerry cans! (A plate chiller isn't as expensive when you have loads of people paying the bill!

I am thinking of the coolant requirements. Plate chillers are pretty efficient on coolant by comparison with ICs and such, but they are still really wasteful on water. I have a real issue with the waste of water, whether I am personally metered or not.

Its a personal thing - I would prefer that the majority of water I use in brewing ends up in the beer.

[Padraic]

I am thinking of the coolant requirements. Plate chillers are pretty efficient on coolant by comparison with ICs and such, but they are still really wasteful on water. I have a real issue with the waste of water, whether I am personally metered or not.

Its a personal thing - I would prefer that the majority of water I use in brewing ends up in the beer.

You can be head of the glycol cooled Immersion Chiller project :-D

That'd be cool!

[DEMPSEY]

I suggest the best way to use water for cooling is to have 2 chiller systems. First one takes the initial heat from hot wort and transfers to the HLT. Second can then take the remaining wort temp down with a glycol mix that is kept for continued use.

[Shane Phelan]

Was talking about this with Jules and he is very enthusiastic about having a set of brewing equipment permanently in TOG.

Short Term
It needn't be expensive, a kettle and mash-tun along with the usual components would be a start. There is already a hydrometer and siphon in there. I have a spare thermometer and fermenting bucket with bung that I'm happy to donate.

I will set about getting a set of shelves for all this stuff so that on a brew-day, if someone wants to brew all they would need in theory was ingredients and a fermenter to take it home.

Long Term
He was also saying that an insulated enclosure could be set up to create a temperature controlled fermentation chamber.

List of stuff to donate
Shiny - Thermometer
Shiny - Fermenter (with bungs and airlock)
Shiny - Some Whole speciality malt
Shiny - More useful stuff that I find duplicates of

[Rossa]

I've a couple if spare 50l pots  I could donate???

[Shane Phelan]

We could put elements into them?

[Eoin]

One boiler, a bag and a hoist and you could BIAB pretty quickly. Not a large investment. I'd happily donate a bag if given pot specs.

The offer is there.

[Shane Phelan]

That's a great offer! Thanks Eoin. BIAB would also cut down on space requirements significantly I don't mind going halves on one of these to heat the thing.



Could use it as an opportunity to do a definitive guide on how to correctly earth a metal pot with JD's help?

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Go with multiple elements. I sometimes get cut outs in my kettle when wort scorches onto the element. Would love to have a backup element when that happens. Just gives lots more options really.

[Padraic]

I'll donate about 20KG of base malt that I have in stock that I'm going to be replacing in the next few weeks. I can also donate a couple of buckets for use as fermenters. And possibly some hops as well!

Maybe a seperate thread for the ingredients for the next brewday would make sense and I can drop in some of the ingredients needed. I won't be able to make it that day I think!