Upgrading Equipment

Question

I am getting a new Equipment on the next month.

As background info I was homebrewing for the last year. I was reading as much as I can and cooking beer as many time as I can, i think that I have at least 20 times, and around 700 Lts of beer.

As you see i am quite new in homebrewing.

The equipment i was using is for 40lts (only one pot of 50lts and a conservator of 60lts).

The equipment I am getting next month is for 160lts, with 3 pots (water, macerator and boil) and a 170lts fermentator. The equipment was design by experienced homebrew guys, and it has no any accesories that I still dont know.

Despite of this, I am concerned about the complications that can carry a cook of much larger volumes. I was suggested to be careful with the temperature of the fermenter because a much larger volume can elevate the beer temperature during this process.

I would like to know which aspects you could recommend me to take care.

Thanks!

Answer 1

So you are moving from a 40l kit to 160l kit. Things I would be considering:

1) How am I going to move around 150Kg of water?

2) What am I going to do with huge amounts of spent grain?

3) What effect will the larger volume have on my fermentation?

4) What effects should I expect in a larger mash?

5) What effects should I expect in a larger boil?

These are in the order I would worry about them.

1) Get a pump, just get a pump. If it does not come with one get one as soon as possible. maybe even get 2 one to keep as a spare, as there are few things worse than being half way through your sparge and the pump cutting out.

2) Many options here: compost it, turn some into granola, feed it to pigs/chickens or chuck it.

3) With a 170l fermenter you may end up with slightly elevated temperatures during fermentation vs a 40l FV due to the lower surface area to volume ratio, but you will likely have not too many problems so long as you have a stable temperature where you store the FV, you may find you have to keep the area you store your FV in a couple of degrees cooler to compensate but likely you will have few problems.

Also are you going to use dried yeast/liquid yeast, 6-8 packs or are you going to culture up a starter and pitch that. I would suggest for the first couple just buying the extra yeast, but once you feel confident on the new kit it can be great fun doing mini fermentations to build up some healthy yeast for a pitch.

4) In a larger mash you should expect it to retain temperature better over the 60min of the mash and I found I got better conversion by about 5-10%.

5) In a larger boil I got slightly better alpha acid utilisation, beers started coming out slightly more bitter and I had to cut back a a little on bittering hops to compensate.

I hope that helps.