KenRat

Welcome to How I Brew

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Every brew starts with Promash (thank you Masher), I highly recommend this software. I first calculate the water needed. Reciepes are stored by style. Brewing session is recorded so the recipe can be duplicated. Promash has everything a small brewer or prewbub could ask for...

This is where you check what real brewers are up to. I can't say enough about these guys. A lot of my ideas and brews come from the Bewrats. Thank you Skot, Zymie, TD, Strange, Zythos,et al.....

This is the frontal view. R. to L. hot liquor tank, kettle, control panel, rims, mash tunn. All valves are stainless. Kettles are old style(just to be differ- ent). City water is hooked in at bottom, goes through flowmeter to measure volume, then through carbon filter(see next photo) into HLT. All vessel are connected with SS cam lock quick-disconnect to ease in cleaning.

I tee'd off before filter to supply custom made 1/2" immersion chiller (supplied by Beer, Beer, & more Beer). This bypasses the filter, no need to filter chiller water. All tubing is food grade tygon..Small sampling valve is tee'd in case I need filtered water for extract brewing.

This is where the Brew-Day begins. A fellow Brew Rat HHHHoagie built this mill. It will flat grind 30 lbs. in 5 minutes. Thank you HHH.

This is the HLT, I begin by filling tank with filtered Cerritos water. I add water treatment if necessary at this point. I also acidify the water. Ready for dough in. There is a small sampling valve tee'd the other way in case I need extra water for the boil...

This is Hobby Beverages 'Mini-mash" tun. It holds heat excellent. False bottom with sparge arm in lid...pretty cool product. The basis for the RIMS comes from not being able to directly heat this tun. I keep an eye on the large thermometer for step infusion mashing. Rims is turned on and off manually to achieve desired temp rest.

This is the heart of my system. The heaters are not in the wort stream. Instead it is similar to a heat exchanger. I use an alum- inum plate which has 4 passes off wort flowing thru 1/2" copper tubing. In between are 4 220v inconel cartridge heaters. Entire RIMS is thermally insulated. It raises the wort 1-degree per minute. Wort recurlates thru Moving Brews magnetically coupled pump. When sarrification is reached, the three-way valve directs wort to kettle while sparging..

Brew kettle has SS check valve downstream is valve to slow the sparge, which normally takes 30 minutes. Inside the kettle is a 1/2" SS piping arrangement to prevent HA. The bottom of the kettle has a SS screen to catch trub and spent hops. After boil & chilling the wort flows directly into fermentors, oxygenated, pitch, than then #10..

This is the controlled fermentation refer using Johnson controls, supplied by Williams Brewing. It's used for lagering and hops (supplied by Darren-Thank you, your hops rule)..

I built this extract and mead system for when I don't feel like using the 15 gallon system. Also doubles for decotion mashes. I can pull grain from tun to do decotion, etc, without using boil kettle...

This system is for steeping specialty grains and spices for meads. Zymie's "no sparge thingie" keeps grains held back. Thanks Z...

This is what BrewRats do......Guess you can figure this one out.

I'd like to thank all the BrewRats. Good people,also George from Sentienel, who supplied all the stainless, Bob Gubany(the man with the giant brain). My wife Cindi (she puts up with all this)...