316 Stainless - ready for action!

Well, sort of... we've been cleaning all week and are happy to report that our copper is 95% ready for brewing and FVs 1 and 2 are as shiny as shiny things (3 and 4 still need cleaning, but that's the two big ones done...!)

We're still being promised gas next week and the guys are visiting to work out our hot-side stainless pipework so, once that's all done, we're getting very close indeed.

So, as is now traditional, here are the customary photos to show what we've been doing this week!

FV2 in all it's stainless splendour after a damn good scrubbing!

 

Gazza doing said scrubbing inside FV2...

The steps into the void... (inside the copper)

  

Gazza inside the copper.

And again, trying to get 20 years' worth of carbon off the bottom!

Tom's hard work on the copper shows - before (right) and after (left) nylon sanding!

And finally, our "waste hopper" in use!  This little contraption is used to dump the FVs into then it's wheeled across to the drain where the contents are disgorged!

Two Lowara pumps in the van.

We've just driven out to the wilds of East Yorkshire to pick up 2 huge Lowara pumps for our mash and copper streams. Never used, still bolted to the delivery frames! £100 the two...

One of the monsters in the van!

Not far off now....

Last week saw progress in many areas of the brewery setup, including - 

• We now have a working water main,
• We cleaned out the Mash Tun and jetwashed it's filter plates,
• All FV's were jetwashed and found to have immaculate stainless inside,
• "Tom's shed" (the grain hopper) was completed,
• The premasher has been finished apart from the hot liquor pipework,
• Said hot liquor pipework has been designed,
• Two Lowara pumps have been sourced,
• The steelwork has finally been completed along with the handrails and kickboards,
• Marine ply lids have been made for the Mash Tun and Copper.

We're still waiting on the gas board to supply a meter, but once that's done we have the gas burners ready to install under the copper.  We are off to get the pumps this week and also see a man about the "hot side" pipework and so, once these two things are done, we are almost in a position to brew!

So, the light at the tunnel's end is getting closer.... stay tuned for more developments this week!

Here are some photos from last week to illustrate what happened...

Gazza with the just-scrubbed and polished HLT.

The newly-made Malt Hopper, or Tom's Shed as it it's now called...

The freshly-jetwashed Fermenters drying out.

Our new mash hopper and sparklingly clean HLT.

Not bad for a 40 year-old tank, eh?  Fresh from it's jetwash, FV1 sparkles!  The paddles will be taken out and saved for possible future use in stronger beers when agitation of yeast is required.

Inside the Mash tun, once again immaculate Stainless 316!

The newly made Marine ply lid on the copper being varnished with FV1 and 2 behind.

Gazza with the newly-made premasher and Mash tun.

Progress Update - 4th March.

Things have moved on a lot in the past couple of weeks and it's beginning to look like the finish line is in sight albeit obscured a bit by cleaning and British Gas!

So, here's what we have achieved recently...

• We have jetwashed 75% of the vessels and floor with the remaining Conditioning Tanks and Mash Tun are in the queue for tomorrow,
• The gas board have finally admitted we don't have a meter and are in process of setting us up so we can have one (they insisted we had a meter until an engineer came out and discovered the cap on the gas main was last touched 15 years ago),
• The gas jets for the copper are ready to be installed as are the insulation chimney bricks,
• Electrics are in process of being upgraded, 
• We've bought two second-hand Lowara vertical pumps for the mash and wort streams,
• The Plate Cooler has arrived,
• We've done a pipework diagram for the hot side which we will take to Hereford this week to hopefully be made / sourced,
• The drain is working a treat!,
• A cold store container has been located,
• We have the temperature control units and chiller units for FV cooling,
• The cask washer is almost ready for testing,
• Testbrewing has been a huge success with the beers getting good reviews all round.

I'm sure there is more but that'll do for today!  Hopefully this week will see yet more progress towards being able to brew and we'll keep you updated as frequently as possible.

Testbrew launch night!

With three testbrews in the bag we thought it was time to see what the general public thought of our brews thus far and so we organised a "tap takeover" at the Wheatsheaf, Llantrisant on Thursday 28th February.

On the bar were three versions of the bitter; one "as-is" with no dry hopping, one dry-hopped with Bobek and one with Marynka, accompanied by our hoppy amber beer "Bad Monkey" and "Mosaic" which had been hopped in the FV with the luscious-smelling new US hop Mosaic, hence the name.

The evening was a great success and we garnered a good amount of feedback from beer lovers and "normal" drinkers alike.  The general consensus was that Bobek suited the bitter best (and a touch less colour), whilst Mosaic went down a storm with everyone and we sold the entire batch (13.5 gallons) in around 7 hours!  The incredible aroma of Mosaic was the star of the show - strawberries, peaches, pineapple - and we're hopeful we can reproduce that scaled up a bit.  Overall we were very happy with the way all the beers were received, so cheers everyone for showing up and drinking them!

Now to make the "big" brewery work and produce some fantastic beers...  thanks to everyone for the support and we hope to repay you in great beer soon.

The calm before opening!  A bit of quality control...

The first pint pulled!

Cheers to us...

A bit more quality control on the Mosaic, just in case there's something wrong with it.

Coffee Stout... And the release of our first 3 testbrews.

We're brewing a coffee stout today and also, from 17:00 tonight at the Wheatsheaf, Llantrisant, you can come taste 3 versions of our bitter, Mosaic pale ale and Bad Monkey, a hoppy amber.

The bar recently...

An ode to drainage channels.

Drainage has been the bane of our lives for the past three weeks due to matters completely beyond our control, and sometimes it seemed we'd never get a working drain....

Originally we had permission to dig a channel along the length of the brewery floor to empty into the drain out front of the unit; bish bosh, sorted.  We then discovered that this is a storm drain and can't be used for waste (it's rainwater only) and so we needed to vent our waste into the manhole out back which has involved digging an extra 15 metres of channel through rock-hard reinforced concrete, knocking a hole in the wall, digging up the path out back and finally routing it into the main drain.... put it this way, NEVER AGAIN will any of us ever build a drain!

Owing to the weight of the steelwork and vessels, raising the floor around a channel wasn't an option so we had to cut it into the reinforced concrete floor with jackhammers, smaller electric chisels, manual chisels and suchlike.  Now, after almost a month, we finally have a working drain which is concreted in and looking good!  And believe me, we tested it before concreting it in.

Apologies for labouring such a tedious aspect of the brewery when we're sure all you want to see are our smiling faces peeping from FV's and other brewing vessels, but to understand how difficult these seemingly small aspects of brewery setup are is to grasp just why it takes so long for a brewery to actually begin production...

Tom concreting in the channel and pipework.

Our sump, a miracle of ingenuity!

Gazza concreting in the channel.

Tom and Turk demolish the path out back.

Turk in the sewer... the lengths you have to go to!

Painting the floor and other more exciting things.

Bet it's not that colour for long...

The excitement continues unabated in Pontyclun as we've now painted the brewing level floor a lovely shade of "British Racing green" - it looks nothing like the photo in real life, but we're sure you can imagine it's verdant glow.

In other non-paint related news, the gas burners for the copper should be plumbed in this week along with, we hope, our lovely (and very expensive) new plate cooler which will mean - once a small amount of pipework is done - that we can think about brewing some beer!

Before that, however, we've got to give everything a mammoth clean and caustic wash, fix up the remaining handrails, plumb in the water, commission the cask washer, order said casks, get a palletload of malt, buy some saccharometers and a million other things which are required to be done before we can make beer.

So, the moral of the story so far is that if anyone tells you setting up a brewery is easy you have an absolute moral right  - nay, obligation - to laugh in their face.  Honestly, you do.  Just send them over to us and we'll do the same.

Work continues...

The mammoth task of creating a working brewery continues apace and, thankfully, it's now looking more like it could actually be used to make beer!

The drainage is close to completion, the steelwork painted in undercoat ready for daubing with various luminous colours, the walls are in process of being clad with spray-down plastic and various technical things have been accomplished or are in process - cask washer, copper gas supply and jets, FV temperature control, CT cladding, extra hop supplies... you get the idea.

So, we're still hopeful that we can begin brewing in a couple of weeks, although this could slip a touch as there is still massive amounts to be done... watch this space!

The HLT and MT with newly-painted steelwork!

Welding one of the support beams

More testbrewing!

We did so much yesterday in the brewery - wipe clean walls nearly done, drainage almost sorted, steelwork undercoated, floor finished - that it's time to try out a few more recipes from the stack waiting to be brewed, maybe even two depending on time!

The spray-down wall cladding going on.

Testbrewing !!!

Yes, you read that right.

We are testbrewing.

Not on the big plant, mind, but on Tom's dinky little 0.5BBL kit where we've already done our first brew and hope to do a couple more next week.  Whether these will be actually sold over the bar in the Wheatsheaf, Llantrisant (where we brewed them), or more prosaically tasted then dumped isn't yet known, but whatever happens we're happy to be trying out a couple of recipes we've got lined up for you just to see how they come together in "real life"!

So, just to prove it, here's some photos of us messing about with the pilot plant which will, once we're all sorted out, be installed in the unit and utilised for more testbrewing and also to produce some extreme beers which even we don't think we can sell a full brew of!

Back of an envelope indeed!

Hops, and plenty of 'em.

That protofloc worked well...

The SO5 kicks into action.

Hard graft....

Gazza, being someone who has been used to swanning around in company cars, sitting at keyboards and generally doing f-all for the last 20 years, is getting a rude awakening at present as we jackhammer a drainage channel into the concrete floor at the brewery which, predictably, seems to be made of super-hard concrete reinforced with way too many steel rods... it wasn't a Friday afternoon "bodgett and scarper" obviously!

These photos show the progress being made recently, and now the steelwork is almost all painted too it's beginning to look vaguely like a brewery in there now... next, once the drainage channel is completed, it's time to thoroughly clean the kit, assemble the copper's gas jets and insulation, wrap the CTs in beer line and then lag them ready for temperature control, construct the cask washer, make a malt hopper and pre-masher, pipe up the vessels... you get the idea!

At least it's all coming together now and we're hoping to be in a position to brew in a couple of weeks time.

Tom and Turk get to work on the Channel.

Work in progress...

Gazza gets stuck in.

Turk and Gazza tackle the concrete.

Grinding off one of the many steel wires.

Almost done !!!

All coming together....

Apologies for the lack of updates recently, but now things are moving well - as you will see!

The steel frame is now installed in Pontyclun and the vessels have been lifted onto the "brewing floor" as we rather grandly call it!  Once this is all completed we can do a thorough clean and then begin brewing!

Obviously there is still a lot to do with regards lagging the conditioning tanks and moving them into place, doing the permanent pipework and so on, but once everything is physically in place at least then we can brew using flexible hoses and begin to get some beers out.

More updates as they happen.

Cheers!

FV4 is lifted onto the brewing floor.

And finally the hot liquor tank makes it's appearance...

And the rest is on its way!!!

We've just had confirmation that the rest of the brewery - the steel frame, copper, HLT and various other bits and bobs - is on it's way down to Wales!

And there's the other bits!

So, things are moving even faster now and we'll hopefully soon have it all in place and ready for testing out....

Brewery take-down in Norfolk.

Last week saw us over in deepest Norwichshire to observe (and get roped into) the take-down of our brewery at it's current site.  

Things began well with a relaxed 180-mile drive via the M4 and M11 and thence onto windy roads but, once we'd arrived, it soon transpired that we weren't simply going to take a few photos and then head off into the sunset; no, we'd have to so some work and stop over in a knackered old caravan, too.  Good job, then, that we'd been to Arbor in Bristol and Otley in Pontypridd to stock up on bottled beers for that night!  

Typically, the weather had chosen that night to become freezing cold after weeks of mildness, so the electric fire was cranked up to the max inside the caravan... although the numerous 7%+ bottles we drank probably kept most of the cold away!  We also got to experience a proper Russian restaurant locally which is a new one on me...

By the end of day two we'd got most of the vessels - and aren't they just superbly retro in a 1950's Bakelite kind of way? - loaded onto the flatbed lorry and away to Wales, with the rest of the steelwork and vessels due to follow this week.  

Below are some photos to show what happened!

The brewery floor before we started work.

The Mash Tun is lifted off the brewing floor...

... and out of the door!

Then it was the turn of the FV's, not an easy task with millimetres of clearance between the crane and the roof!

With night drawing in, the last vessel was manoeuvred outside.

The next day, once our lorry had arrived (and blocked the lane!), it was time for the simple matter of loading the vessels onto the flatbed.

It wasn't us driving, by the way, and huge respect to David for not trashing any of them!

FV2 goes onto the lorry.

There was just time for a quick celebratory photo before the truck was off South Wales-bound with our precious cargo!  I imagine the sight of these beauties will cause some confusion on the M4.... 

So, there we go... there should be more updates soon once the rest of the hardware arrives onsite in Pontyclun and we begin to reassemble it all... then clean it... then paint it... then, finally, brew on it!

Old brewery, new start...

Confirmation has come through that we're all set to go and supervise the take-down of our brewery at it's current home in preparation for shipping it down to Wales.

So, rolling with this, it looks like we may be in a position to brew some beer late January to early February, although we fully expect this estimate to be extremely fluid as we need to re-assemble the brewery, pipe it up and give it a bloody good clean before we can even begin thinking about brewing on it...  and that's without getting the casks, malt and hops ready!

But, if everything pans out, we should soon have a brewery... which is the main thing!

Happy New Year!

Progress has been necessarily quiet in the build-up to Xmas, but as soon as everything is back to normal in January we're going to be all over our brewery building / fitting out / cleaning / testing like a rash!  Things are moving along and we're still hoping to do our first test brew in January... maybe a touch optimistic but we're raring to get brewing.

So happy new year to all and hopefully, in 12 months time, we'll have brewed some great beers and be planning many more!

Cheers!

Gazza, Steve and Tom.

The Hot Liquor Tank arrives... just!

We have our Hot Liquor Tank... but as you can see from the photo it only just fitted into the van, and that was an extra-big van too!

So, we are now in possession of yet another bit of kit for the brewery which, hopefully, will be installed in the next few weeks... stay tuned for the news!

It WILL fit....