This year my xmas present to myself is a new boiler. I’ve gone for a 70 litre steel pot from the Malt Miller (from whom I got my mash tun last year), and decided on gas as the fuel.
I’ve gone for gas as I intend to move the brewing into the garage when it’s wet and horrible outside, and while we do have electrics out there (it’s a detached garage at the bottom of the garden), I don’t know if I’d trust it to run two elements at the same time.
I got the gas ring from Hamilton Gas Products, and chose a patio gas regulator so I can use the same bottles as the BBQ.
My intention was to get a boiler that will let me double my brew-lengths, making full use of my mash tun (on the right of the photo, on a stool, containing the second batch sparge – the first was in the boiler when the photo was taken). So far I’ve only done two 25 litre brews, but that’s because I don’t have a pump and haven’t decided what it can stand on that’s tall enough that I can drain from the tap into a fermenter. When there’s only 25 litres it’s still light enough that I can lift it onto a table to drain. I also (of course) need a fire-proof surface to stand it on!
The other thing holding me back is fermentation… Since there’s no way I can carry a fermenter containing 50 or so litres from the boiler into the fridge, I’ll need to ferment in two buckets. This means either using both fridges simultaneously (which is a pain, as I intend to dedicate the colder and smaller of the two to lagering for the time being!), or getting a sturdy enough shelf in the large fridge.
The latter is my plan, but I need to get around to a) designing it, and b) making it. I think I’ll make a wooden framed structure that will provide two shelves for the fermenters, but I ain’t no carpenter so it may take some time (and my father-in-law’s jigsaw) before I can make it.
I need to work out my stats for the new boiler: evaporation rate, and make a new measuring stick. But after two brews I’m very happy with it. It’s easy and quite quick to get up to a rolling boil, and means I can stick the full volume in it and largely ignore it during the boil, which is far less faff than my old 25 litre plastic boiler, as that always required topping up to get a 25 litre brew-length out of it.
It is very steamy, though: quite difficult to just glance at it and see what sort of a boil is going. I always seem to need to blow the steam off it a bit so I can see the surface of the liquid, but it has been a bit cool the last couple of weekends when I’ve brewed.
The old one is still in use: combined with a temperature controller, it makes a reasonable hot liquor tank. Albeit one that only just takes the full volume I’ll need for a 46 litre brew. According to the batch sparge calculator at Jim’s Brew Kit, a 46 litre, and 8kg recipe will need 20 litres for the mash, 16 litres to top-up for the first sparge, and 27 litres for the second sparge, and require a 44 litre mash tun – and mine is 45 litres. If I want to get any bigger then it would be brew-in-a-bag time (may have to give it a bash, for the cost of a bag)!
There are a few more photos of the Vorticist brewday on Flickr.
