What I Did Today

[Chubbs]

Today I popped over to see my mate, who true to his word, gave me a couple of these blue barrels.

Must have been about 50 of them but I would be a little optimistic thinking I could fill them all !.




Not in bad condition really, will just need a real good scrubbing out.

Not too sure on the literage on these. They must be at least 100 litre, or maybe a little more. Will have a look around the net to see what dimensions/literage they are. They are 790 mm tall x 400mm wide at the top of the neck.

No matter what size they are, they are going to make brewing easier.

[Toper]

Given a radius, at the top, of 200mm and a height of 790mm, and allowing for the taper at the bottom, you very probably have a capacity of 100 litres......I think.

[Chubbs]

Toper

You are about right with that estimate. Had a look around and the same size seems to be 120 litres.


Certainly won't be making more than 100 litres each time, so there will be enough room for the krausen on top. Even the lid has a ready made hole which could be adapted to hold an airlock.

[Easydrinker]

Airlock?
Why?
You planning on fine wine?

Robert.

[Chubbs]

Realised I wouldn't need to use an airlock just after I posted.

Will need daily access to adjust the PH if required. It will save me drilling any holes for the thermostats though.

[Mash]

Agree. No airlock required.

You will find the ferment is different.
Probably won't need to mess about with ph if the recipe is right to start with, including the water.

A cheap electric blanket will give you superb temp control. Doubles are better.

Use hot water to get a good 20c to start with. Electric blanket on full. Insulation over that with a bungee holding it together. Check it once, twice a day. Cut the heat at 28c will probably peak at 30. Let it fade.
It will generate it own heat.
Don't be afraid to stir it (daily) to equalise temperature and yeast.

You should find bigger ferments easier.

[Chubbs]

Excellent info Mash, thankyou. Info noted in my brewing book.

I didn't realise that there was such a difference in fermentations with bigger brew lengths. What amount of yeast would you advise I use for a brew length of 100 litres.

[Curmudgeon]

Fairly sure those are 110-120 litres and allowing headroom I'd go with 4 x 23 litre recipes.

Amount of yeast isn't so important as it'll breed just fine. Concentrate on nutrient, temperature and ph, imo.

Edit : before you ask, there's no wrong way, just different speeds and efficiencies and flavours :p

[Mash]

200 - 250 grams. Track down Fermipan.

Yeast pitching really is different for spirits as against wine or beer.

7g is a typical beer dose in 25l. Wine is similar. I regularly used to run 300l on 20..... but the lag time was much longer. Getting the pitch right does affect the product. Yeast does many things as well produce alcohol.

For spirits you JUST want the alcohol no flavour and quickly.
And that's the reason for the high dose and the high temp.

[Chubbs]

Thanks again for the info.

Going to get a large brew on in the next day or so. Was going to wait until the shed was sorted but I will just build a stand about 2.5 foot tall for the barrel out of some 4 x 2 that I have.

This should give me enough height so that I can syphon instead of dragging the pump out and wiring it up. In the meantime I have 2 x 25 litre wine fermenters of wash in the freezer that need decanting into demijohns. Don't have much time this week to start my first distillation with the T500 so will just store it for later on.

[Curmudgeon]

You are going to have a fun problem at some stage.

You will go from just about producing enough booze to drink without aging to suddenly having a shit/shed load of spirits and figuring how to have enough glass/wood/not plastic to put it all in.

Every one of us that ever made beer and or wine before spirits got frustrated by not making enough so ramped up and then suddenly reached an "Ohh bollocks!" moment

[Mash]

+1 to that

[packapoo]

BTDT, heh heh....

[Easydrinker]

I do remember hurriedly building a shed 30 years ago to house my expanding homemade beer and wine collection.
Happy days!


Robert.

[gaza the instructor]

Just done that