3-Tier Brew Stand [Pt3] – Welding (ULCBP)

Dangerous Dave and his dad, Russ, kindly volunteered their time to help put the brew stand together.  After not-entirely successful weld tutorial from Russ, it was pretty clear that the stand wasn’t going to stumble into a three-dimensional existence at the hands of me and Dave.  Russ very generously offered himself as hired gun.

Despite battling every imaginable obstacle – driving rain, poor welding rods, too small a work surface, an unrealistic time allocation – the skeleton of a handsome brew stand emerged!

Yes, we finished very much in the dark…

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Paddy Melon vs .270 WSM

A small paddy melon goes up against Joel’s .270 Winchester Short Magnum lever-action.

Unicycling

Mary and I took the unicycle out for an enjoyable autumn morning  of one-wheel action!

HLT Upgrade – High Flow Outlet

As great as my electric water urn Hot Liquor Tank (HLT) has been, it has always had a slightly leaky tap.  This was never a really massive issue but, seeing as the tap was quite slow to drain water, I did see it as an opportunity to drive some further performance gains from the tank.

I’ve now installed a 1/2″ ball valve in place of the old tap (see comparison photos below).  It provides the following benefits:

1. No longer have to hold the tap down the entire time – just set and forget
2. Can set the flow rate easily
3. Much higher max flow rate – I estimate triple what I had before, meaning less temperature loss waiting for the mashtun to fill
4. No leaks
5. The ability to attach things to the end of it – like a sparging device

I also took the time to calibrate the sight glass.  Now it sports 3L increments all the way up to the 18L mark.

Cost: $22

Another Brew Day (ULCBP)

Dave, Nath and Mary rocked up for the latest installment in brewing.

The weather was atrocious, but by the end of the day we had pumped out 6 brews in a wide variety of styles: from pale ales and darks to even some experimental beers, such as Nath’s rauchbier using some smoked grain.

As you can see from the photos pretty much everything has to live on the ground.  So, hopefully this will be the last brew session before the new brew stand gets commissioned!