Designing your own home brewery Mike Heydenrych Presented at the Worthogs meeting of 12 February 2003

What do you want to achieve? The six most important aspects of making good beer 1. Big yeast starters 2. Temperature control 3. Full wort boils 4. Cool your wort quickly 5. Oxygenate your wort 6. Keep good records  Mark Tumarkin, Hogtown Brewers, posted on HBD

How much will your wife allow you to spend? Beginner R500 Hobbyist R1500 Enthusiast R MashKit/stove R0 Partial/zap-zap R100 All-grain R3000 CoolPot in sink R0 Immersion R110 Counterflow R300 FermentBucket R50 Fridge R800 Cylindro-con R1500 DispenseBottles R50 Bottles R50 Cornelius kegs R5000

This presentation Beginner R500 Hobbyist R1500 Enthusiast R MashKit/stove R0 Partial/zap-zap R100 All-grain R3000 CoolPot in sink R0 Immersion R110 Counterflow R300 FermentBucket R50 Fridge R800 Cylindro-con R1500 DispenseBottles R50 Bottles R50 Cornelius kegs R5000

Mash/lauter systems: Cooler box Mash Pipe with holes under to drain away wort

Mash/lauter designs: The Zap-Zap system (Charlie Papazian) Make holes 2-3mm Cheap, easy Lautering is by pouring water from a jug by hand No direct heat

Immersion cooler Cold water in Warm water out Kitchen pot Hot wort

Beginner R500 Hobbyist R1500 Enthusiast R MashKit/stove R0 Partial/zap-zap R100 All-grain R3000 CoolPot in sink R0 Immersion R110 Counterflow R300 FermentBucket R50 Fridge R800 Cylindro-con R1500 DispenseBottles R50 Bottles R50 Cornelius kegs R5000 Chemical Engineers’ heaven

Three-tier Hot Liquor Tank Mash/ Lauter Kettle No pumps  Recirculate by carrying buckets  Climb to look into HLT

Two-tier Hot Liquor Tank Mash/ Lauter Kettle Easier to check vessels  Needs a pump  Not a great deal of flexibility

Single-tier Hot Liquor Tank Mash/ Lauter Kettle Easy to work with vessels  Relies on pumps  Needs at least 2 pumps for sparging

My preferred layout Hot Liquor Tank Mash/ Lauter Kettle To chiller, fermenter Sample tap Optional HLT recirc.

Fill Mash tun Hot Liquor Tank Mash/ Lauter Kettle To chiller, fermenter Sample tap Optional HLT recirc. Green = open/on Red = closed

Recirculate/ramp Hot Liquor Tank Mash/ Lauter Kettle To chiller, fermenter Sample tap Optional HLT recirc.

Sparge Hot Liquor Tank Mash/ Lauter Kettle To chiller, fermenter Sample tap Optional HLT recirc.

Chill Hot Liquor Tank Mash/ Lauter Kettle To chiller, fermenter Sample tap Optional HLT recirc.

Vessel sizes Hot Liquor Tank 2 volumes Mash/ Lauter 0.8 volumes Kettle 1.5 volumes Fermenter 1.2 volumes Brew length = 1 volume

Does size matter? (Prices of vessels from Sinvac, May 2002) Cost = (11.2) 2/3

Typical 60ℓ setup

Detailed vessel design Principles Practicalities Kettle and Hot Liquor Tank heating Mash/lauter tun design Counterflow chiller Fermenter

Hot liquor tank - principles High W/m 2 on heater element OK Thermostat control useful, not essential If you have a HERMS coil, then movement of the water around the coil is essential, else you get: cold layers of water at the bottom of the tank poor transfer of energy to the wort in the tube

Hot liquor tank Need volume - plastic tanks are economical Geyser elements are acceptable 1¼” (32mm) thread Power rating unimportant Geyser thermostat OK Recirculation useful for good temperature control

Hot liquor tank schematic 2kW geyser element with thermostat Optional HERMS Outlet valve Inlet for recirc.

Kettle principles For a given kW heater element, you will evaporate a given amount of water per hour, whether the lid is on or off. Rolling boil serves several purposes Agitation for agglomerating protein particles Evolution of steam to drive off volatiles Temperature to drive  -acid isomerisation Temperature to drive Maillard (darkening) reactions Wort ingredients foul heater elements and cause them to fail unless the energy density per m 2 is reduced.

Kettle - practicalities Use stainless steel if possible, and heat using gas Plastic works well, but specify large-area Incoloy heating elements (approx. R250). Strive for 24kW/m 2 (4m for a 3kW element). 3kW elements for kettles from ℓ You need a good rolling boil, even with the lid off.

Heating elements: sealing detail Electrical connector Electrical box Kettle wall Securing nut 12 mm Sealing washer Electric element

Mashing Temperature ramping: 3 methods Add hot water, thinning the mash Heat up recirculated wort, either by HX with hot liquor (HERMS), Directly heating wort under the sieve, or Directly heating wort electrically (RIMS) Heat up mash and grains directly: Decoction mashing Heating container directly Stirring with a heated mashing fork

Mashing - principles Thinning the wort reduces enzyme activity (but OK for  -amylase?) Heating up recirculated wort denatures enzymes, so keep temp. rise low, and minimise the time the wort spends hot Heating up mash and grains directly: Movement of particles relative to the hot surface NB to prevent burning (phenols)

Mashing – Pros and Cons HERMS (Heat Exchanger tube in HL tank) You can’t overheat the wort You need to stir your HLT with HERMS RIMS (Recirc. Infusion Mashing System), electrical heating of recirculating wort Best used by controlling the electrical energy input based on the wort temperature. Direct heating by gas Long residence time of heated wort under sieve (keep this volume low!)

Sparging – principles Stuck mash - Compressible filter bed Low pressure drop Medium flow Medium pressure drop Med-fast flow High pressure drop Slow flow

Sparging – principles Stuck mash - Compressible filter bed 1 cm/min

Sparging – principles Lauter plate design There tend to be more openings on the edge, hence more flow down the sides. Make as many 2-2,5mm holes as practical, preferably with a greater density of holes in the middle Try to get as close to plug flow as possible – clean water fully replacing sugary wort as it moves down. Start sparging only when the liquid level falls below the top of the grain bed

Sparging – practicalities For mashing, you want an approximately equal height/diameter ratio to keep heat loss down. For sparging, you want to keep the surface area as large as possible, but have at least 30cm of bed Balance large surface area with the heat loss, or use separate mash tun + lauter tun.

Mash/lauter tun: design Mash Recirculation Keep volume here minimum Vessel diameter should be slightly more than the height to get fastest recirc and lautering Apply flame close to outlet Well insulated

Counterflow chiller: principles Maximise heat transfer area Fluid velocity improves heat transfer Heat transfer rate determined by the side with the lowest fluid velocities Heat transfer occurs across the wall Cold stream Hot stream

Counterflow chiller: principles Temperature Distance along the length of chiller Hot wort Cooling water These lines become parallel if water flow rate decreases to wort flow rate. Typically, you’ll use 3-5x more water than wort.

Counterflow chiller: practicalities Use 15.2m of 10mm soft copper tubing Use 15m of 20mm garden hose Roll out copper tubing flat on the lawn, and push it into the hosepipe. Use a copper connector (ask Moritz) to make the seal on each end: Hot wort in Cold wort out Warm water outCold water in

Counterflow chiller: practicalities Where the chilled wort leaves the counter- flow chiller, put it through a 10mm copper coil (5m) dipped in an ice bath Ensure movement of ice water past the tubing by Jigging the tube bundle, or Putting a fountain pump in the bath C/flow chiller Ice bath To fermenter

My first counterflow chiller

Cylindroconical fermenter Need < 30° included angle underneath 5% of volume below side offtake Sinvac 180ℓ, Pioneer 70ℓ Need to make a stand Open fermenter (loose lid) has worked fine

Grain roaster

Discussion For a counterflow chiller design spreadsheet, Added later, some suppliers (details on Worthogs web site): Metraclark (Mitchell St, Pta) for 10mm copper tubing Sinvac (Pretoria West, near Iscor) for most plastic drums Pioneer plastics (Rosslyn) for 80 liter conical fermenter Plastilon for silver insulation, plastic buckets, packaging materials in general