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

R10 000

Mash Kit/stove

R0

Partial/zap-zap

R100

All-grain

R3000

Cool Pot in sink

R0

Immersion

R110

Counterflow

R300

Ferment Bucket

R50

Fridge

R800

Cylindro-con

R1500

Dispense Bottles

R50

Bottles

R50

Cornelius kegs

R5000

This presentation

Beginner

R500

Hobbyist

R1500

Enthusiast

R10 000

Mash Kit/stove

R0

Partial/zap-zap

R100

All-grain

R3000

Cool Pot in sink

R0

Immersion

R110

Counterflow

R300

Ferment Bucket

R50

Fridge

R800

Cylindro-con

R1500

Dispense Bottles

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 inWarm water out

Kitchen pot

Hot wort

Beginner

R500

Hobbyist

R1500

Enthusiast

R10 000

Mash Kit/stove

R0

Partial/zap-zap

R100

All-grain

R3000

Cool Pot in sink

R0

Immersion

R110

Counterflow

R300

Ferment Bucket

R50

Fridge

R800

Cylindro-con

R1500

Dispense Bottles

R50

Bottles

R50

Cornelius kegs

R5000

Chemical Engineers’ heaven

Three-tier

HotLiquorTank

Mash/Lauter

Kettle

No pumps

Recirculate by carrying buckets

Climb to look into HLT

Two-tier

HotLiquorTank

Mash/Lauter

Kettle

Easier to check vessels

Needs a pump

Not a great deal of flexibility

Single-tier

HotLiquorTank

Mash/Lauter

Kettle

Easy to work with vessels

Relies on pumps

Needs at least 2 pumps for sparging

My preferred layout

HotLiquorTank

Mash/Lauter

Kettle

To chiller,fermenterSample

tap

OptionalHLT recirc.

Fill Mash tun

HotLiquorTank

Mash/Lauter

Kettle

To chiller,fermenterSample

tap

OptionalHLT recirc. Green = open/on

Red = closed

Recirculate/ramp

HotLiquorTank

Mash/Lauter

Kettle

To chiller,fermenterSample

tap

OptionalHLT recirc.

Sparge

HotLiquorTank

Mash/Lauter

Kettle

To chiller,fermenterSample

tap

OptionalHLT recirc.

Chill

HotLiquorTank

Mash/Lauter

Kettle

To chiller,fermenterSample

tap

OptionalHLT recirc.

Vessel sizes

HotLiquorTank

2volumes

Mash/Lauter

0.8volumes

Kettle

1.5volumes

Fermenter

1.2volumes

Brew length = 1 volume

Does size matter?(Prices of vessels from Sinvac, May 2002)

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

0 100 200 300 400 500

Volume, litres

Co

st,

Ran

d 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/m2 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 m2 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/m2 (4m for a 3kW element).

3kW elements for kettles from 40-100ℓ 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 – principlesStuck mash - Compressible filter bed

Lowpressure dropMedium flow

Mediumpressure drop Med-fast flow

Highpressure drop

Slow flow

Sparging – principlesStuck mash - Compressible filter bed

Pressure drop

Flo

w r

ate

1 cm/min

Sparging – principlesLauter plate designThere 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

RecirculationKeep 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 transferoccurs 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 out Cold 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 chillerIce 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

DiscussionFor a counterflow chiller design spreadsheet,

mike@heydenrych.info

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