Beer Forum

Some pictures from sunday's brew day. More to follow.

Assistant brewers doing the real work: grinding grains.

The system. HLT on the top, MLT bottom left, BK bottom right. Gravity feed from HLT down, one march pump for recirculation.

Lighting a burner is annoying: the needle valves seem to want to rotate inside the venturi.

Someday, this mash paddle will save me from a zombie.

Grains.

I love these gloves. They're so comfortable.

Kind of artsy. Also: goop in the sight tube.

Now that is a serious rig. I cant wait to get a little somethin' like that for myself!

You have a 30 gallon rig, but you haven't automated your mill?

Very nice Brotha!

PhillyBrewer wrote:You have a 30 gallon rig, but you haven't automated your mill?

If you look at the pictures again, you might find that he has...

Egger

HAHA! Touché!

Buttwidget wrote:

PhillyBrewer wrote:You have a 30 gallon rig, but you haven't automated your mill?

If you look at the pictures again, you might find that he has...

Egger

+1

I will probably get a motor for the mill rather soon. I had been running it off of a drill, but I find that the drill (which is el cheapo and doesn't go all that slowly) seems to lead to a much coarser crush, even with the 3-roller mill. As this was the first brew (and my first ever fly sparge), I wanted to get as much efficiency as possible from the crush, since I was pretty sure I'd get a lousy sparge efficiency (I didn't get a *terrible* one, but it wasn't great either).

Given that it takes about an hour to fill the MLT and heat the water to strike temps, I've got plenty of time to grind the grain. Good exercise, although I have a pretty strong feeling I'll be motorizing it soon. I also need a real scale- my kitchen scale only really works in units of 1.75 lbs. Time to order some stuff from Amazon, it seems.