After a long period of not brewing while this little brewery was being slowly designed and built, last week the sweet wort flowed again in our little slice of heaven. We kicked off the inaugural run of the Silver Luce Brewery on 10/27/07. There are still additions and modifications that need to be made to the brewery but it’s functional enough to make beer.

I was fairly busy during most of the brew keeping everything operational and didn’t get a lot of pictures but in the end we brewed 10 gallons of American Brown Ale:

• 18 lbs American Two-row Pale
• 4.25 lbs of Crystal 40 L
• .5 lbs Chocolate
• 1.25 lbs American Wheat
• 1.1 oz Chinook (60 Min)
• .5 oz Northern Brewer (60 Min)
• .5 oz East Kent Goldings (30 Min)
• 1 oz Fuggles (30 Min)
• 2 oz Fuggles (1 Min)
• 2-3 tsp Irish Moss (10 Min)
• WLP060 American Ale Yeast Blend
• Mashed @ 154 F for 60 Min, 175 F Sparge water, hit a slightly lower OG than expected 1.057.

I made a starter for the yeast a few days before and used two 2000 ml flasks, which I alternated on my home made stir plate:

On brewday there was still a lot to be done. All the valves and connections had to be taped and tubing connected, the final pieces bolted (and duct-taped) on and everything had to be washed. Luckily I had some help:

Notice the cast on Harley’s arm. What a trooper, he worked through the pain:

The Silver Luce brewery as it stood just before the connections were made for the first run:

Flame on:

The insulated MT held this temp for 60 minutes without any movement! I’ve never had a mash not drop at least one degree before. I’m so happy with the insulation results. Say hello to 154 F:

Oh how beautiful the sight of a clear runoff can be:

Not to mention a full boil at sunset:

10 gallons equals a lot of spent grain. The plants are going to love the compost:

Starters are the way to go. We pitched and within an hour I had activity. Happy yeast are productive yeast:

The first brew on the new brewery went amazingly well. There are a few modifications to make and I’m still working out the details of a few new additions to make this thing really amazing but for now I’m going to get some brews under my belt while the rig keeps evolving.

Next up is a Robust Porter tomorrow night that I’m brewing with a neighborhood friend. Coincidentally it happens to be “Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day” so that will be cool. After that is a Oatmeal Stout that will be bottled and aged for a while. Then I’m thinking about making a Red but I still have to work out the recipe. Oh yeah, I also have to build the keggerator!

Once again it’s been a while since I posted but work has continued on this little project despite the lack of reporting. In fact the brewery was put through it’s paces last week with a 10 gallon run of an American Brown Ale. More on that in another post. This post is to show the newly insulated MT.

I got hold of some sheets of Armaflex insulation and proceeded to glue it on to my MT. Worked like a charm. After a 60 minute mash not a single degree was lost. I could have done 90 minutes without any loss I think.

So here it is:

Since this brewery will eventually be a HERMS system I have no need for a burner under the MT and so I insulated it with the leftover scraps of Armaflex.

Bottom view:

Of course I insulated the top too. The insulation sits on a wooden lid that I made out of 5/8 in plywood. I attached a stainless steel sheet to the bottom and put a hole through the center for the tubing of the manifold to go through. Note that the plastic ties are temporary until I finalize the design and mount it more permanently.

Lid:

Doesn’t the label look great on the black?!