Home Brew......

Scrap kegs obtained for free.....GET IN!........Hello to two new 10 gallon capacity home brew stack systems, coming to me and my brother shortly :-D

 

I'd say you made out like a bandit! Those kegs cost their brewery a pretty penny to buy new.

 

Nice score !

 

I went to a keg distributer and asked a guy in the yard whether they had and would sell any damaged or unusable kegs....
He said "No, the problem is that they are all tracked and accounted for."
I said "oh, I see, I'm after about six".
He said "Wait a minute" and went off into the office.
When he came back he pointed to a couple of pallets of battered kegs of different shapes and set apart from the rest and said "We have these and these have 'no home'. We can't do anything with them and are having trouble getting rid of them".
I said "How much?"
And he said "Help yourself, we're glad to get rid!"
So I backed up the car put the seats down opened the boot and said "THANK YOU!"

…………………………..If you don't ask, you don't get!!!

 

That's a great score!, they look identical to the one I used for my furnace, I use I added a bit of height on mine with a separate lid.

 

Nice haul.. wtf do you need SIX of them for? Going in the furnace building business?

 

He could graft a lengthwise section of one keg into another one, if carefully jigged, you'd get an extra inch or two of insulation thickness. A thinner 316 stick welding filler rod would give him some chance with the thinner metal, maybe a wider strip of keg behind to help take the heat. Use lots of ratchet straps and G clamps with circular plywood forms inside until it's all tacked in place. Heck with that many kegs you could use a sandwich of a narrow strip in the middle of two wider strips of keg to have a self aligning section for the recipient keg sides to slot into like a socket and then tack weld. I'd prefer a wider version of my keg furnace that uses identical kegs.

 

I have two furnaces, I might make another one, upgraded, but the principle idea I have is to make a beer tower for brewing beer. I already brew 5 gallons at a time but 10 gallons would be much better :-D

 

You could lay one on its side, cut it lengthwise and make a reverb for ingoting or high volume direct pour.

 

Here it is two barrels down made into a 10 gallon home brew beer tower. Metal casting is thirsty work and I'm going to remedy that little problem.....

 

At what point do you cool down the mash? Before or after transferring to the 19L jugs?

 

Hi Rod,
The mashing of the grain in the water will be done in the top barrel at 66 degrees centigrade. Once the mashing is completed the wort is sparge syphoned into the bottom barrel which separates the grain from the liquid.

In the bottom barrel the wort or liquid is boiled with the hops then left to cool to room temperature. This is then pitched with the yeast and left to ferment. This fermentation will be a week or so.

The young beer is then decanted into the 19 litre canisters and pressurised with carbon dioxide. This dissolves into the beer and gives the beer it's 'condition' and it is left to mature. Mine never gets to full maturation....I'm on it pretty quickly!!!......except when I am getting to the last of the 19 litres.....

The 19 litre jugs are for storing and serving the finished beer.

I am going to film and edit the process into a short video. It is a really simple process.....like bread making, .....you do a bit, leave it,..... do a bit more and leave it...…. etc until it's done.

 

Jimmy,

So that I'm clear, you're doing an all grain brew all in the top vessel, then fermenting in your bottom vessel? Let me know how that works for you. I ferment in closed vessels where the atmosphere is held back by an airlock. I've always been a tad leery of any type of open fermentation for fear contamination.

-Jason

 

Absolutely right Jason. I've been brewing like that for about 30 years using a 5 gallon stainless steel pan and I never ferment under airlock. I make sure all is clean, but, I sanitise nothing except the stirrer for the cooled wort (when I add the yeast), the siphon tube from the boiler/fermenter (for when the beer is ready to keg up) and the keg and tap that I transfer the finished beer into.

After the boil, the wort and vessel is about as sterilised/sanitised as you can get. I just leave the lid on and let it cool. I don't transfer the boiled wort to another vessel. I think that is the key. The more new surfaces and exposure to air that you make the more chance of an "off brew".

I ferment straight in that with the lid on. The yeast sometimes takes a little longer to get into the anaerobic state due to lack of oxygen, but it always works for me. The yeast can be "kicked off" as a starter culture before adding to the cooled wort.

I am toying with the idea of
(1) an integral wort chiller in the boiler fermenter (I have used one of these in my five gallon pan). I haven't used one for a while as I just let the wort cool down now overnight, (10 gallons might take a bit longer though!!!) and,
(2) an aerator as I have an old medical oxygen producer that I could use to bubble in an oxygen boost prior to pitching the yeast.

I've only ever had one brew go off and that I am sure was because a sanitisation issue with the plastic keg I racked the beer into. I now use stainless steel corney kegs and I have never had a problem with this set up on a smaller 5 gallon size.

Clean up should (I am hoping) be easier too as I will "up end the barrels" tip out the dross and connect a mains water hose pipe to the ball valves and reverse flush through the siphon tubes allowing to drain out through the bottom.

This set up for me is an evolution of what I have been doing a long time albeit on a bigger 10 gallon scale. The idea is to take the process I already use and convert it to a pure gravity through put to get from the water tap and grain to kegged beer with minimum handling.

Cheers! Jim

 

Here it is.....first mash and boil in the new kit. Worked a treat. Just cooling it down now and will pitch it with yeast as soon as it's cool enough.
10 gallons of home brew heaven here I come!

 

Jim,

I have ten gallons fizzing away as well. But I made mine the hard way - on the stove.

 

Ha ha....10 gallons on the stove......that is hard core Jason!

This is the first 10 gallon brew I've ever done. I've always been on the stove but limited with a 5 gallon pan. So, I'm quite excited. It has been the easiest and cleanest brew (clean up and no mess) that I have ever done.

 

Homemade 15mm copper coil for a permanent insert for my Home Brew boiler tun......"a beer wort chiller".....it is going to get some good use!!!

 

I had a buddy in the airforce that lived in the same dorm back in Germany. I remember him making beer. It tasted like rat piss. I never understood why anyone would make crappy beer when we lived in the beer capital of the world? Looks like a lot of work. Now making shine I can understand, I could run my airplane off the stuff, drink it or clean my oven with it!

 

I get so much pleasure from cooking up a great beer, all grain is as good as, and mostly better than, you can buy........and the cost......... approx 1/10th of the price. I'm laughing all the way.....Now, about that aircraft fuel lol!