Thanks for the help, my UK brew setup is now finished.

Tenchi · Joined: 31 May 2016 Posts: 9 Location: Yorkshire

Hi guys, thanks for the help from various parts of the forum in getting my setup complete. I’ve just completed my first brew at the weekend so thought I would share the knowledge and post this on how I got on with the Build and the various UK companies and alterations I needed to complete it.

I followed Kals excellent guide but did try to do it on more of a budget, Think I have spent around £2800 by Brew day this includes all the hardware, accessories like ph tester, scales etc., tools to make it all and the ingredients/chemicals for a brew plus some mini kegs and tap to package it in ready for Christmas parties. The biggest change I made was that the Blichmann Kettles were out of my price range so went for a UK supplier of stainless kettles and added all the fittings.

Kettles:
Between Angel HomeBrew, Brew Builder and Powell Brewing I bought all my Kettles and fittings along with the chugger pumps, herms coil and some other bits, paddle etc. Valves were from ebay, imports from china I guess but work fine and don’t leak.

Tools:
Punches were bought from Builder Depot (couldn’t get the suggested brand without paying a fortune, these do the job fine) and the rest of the tools that I didn’t have from screw fix including the copper and fittings for the chiller.

Elements/Sensors:
Elements and sensor kits were bought from Kal as I wanted to make sure these were correct.

Control Box:
Control box parts were bought from amazon UK through Kals links where possible with changing the relevant parts to 240v, I opted to save some money and not have the safe start or the voltage and amp meters though, enclosure was from CPC and wire from Yesss electrical, I used 2.5mm cable all round except for the xlr which I had an offcut of multi coloured loom from work to make things clearer, the decision to use the same cable all round was just down to been able to buy 3core cheap and strip it down. For the power in and element sockets I used the big 3 pin site/caravan type plugs and sockets as they can be rated to 30a 240v, other sockets were standard kettle lead/plug type, I added an additional one to run some hood lights too. PID’s and timer were Inkbird ones which I have found ok to set up with the help of forum articles.

Electrical Supply:
To make things safe I had an electrician friend install a 30a waterproof socket with its own circuit breaker (luckily I had a spare slot in my consumer box) this cost around £70 for parts and took a couple of hours most due to fitting on the outside of the house.

Extras:
Most of the extra bits Kal suggests in the guide for brewing day like scales and chemicals were bought through amazon uk through his links, chemicals can be named and packaged a bit different over here so some are US imports which are really expensive, my brewing ingredients were from The Home Brew Sop who had UK equivalents for most chemicals.

Best tip I have for building?
I struggled loads with drilling the kettles to start with, the first hole took hours and I changed bits several times convinced I had ruined them, I eventually settled on a very quick effective technique but be very careful if you do it, I propped the back of the hole area with 2x3 timber so the kettle did not flex and made the initial pilot hole with a good hole punch and a big hammer, worked every time, the slight indent it left was cut away when finishing the hold with the punches.

Worst decision?
Not having much electrical knowledge I tried to follow the instructions as close as possible, which meant I struggled to buy the metal element boxes in the UK, everything seems to be plastic, I ordered these and the fittings from amazon us and got stung with massive delivery and import, with the knowledge I now have from building it all I’m sure I could have achieved the same with off the shelf parts here and still grounded the kettles safely, I also paid a lot for the sensors and elements to get through customs, but that was worth it to me for the peace of mind.

First Brew:
I tried Kals Pale Ale recipe guide for the first brew, using Bee Tools Pro I converted everything to Litres & Kg and converted all target temps to Celsius, also scaled it to give 45l after boil for one 30l keg I have and 3 mini 5l kegs.
The brew did not go totally to plan but I put this down to trying to learn too much at once!
The pre boil volume was 0.025 post 0.031 giving a calculated ABV of 3.23 and efficiency of 61.05, not a disaster but not as intended.

The only part I think is significantly different is the false bottom, which is a domed mesh one, which seemed to work well so might not be the problem, the mash recirculation was done with pumps fully open without problem and the sparge flowed consistently, before I think about changing this to something closer to the one Kal uses I will do the following and brew again hopefully these steps will sort it:

Check/Re calibrate my Thermapen, PID’s and PH pen to make sure I was brewing at the correct temperatures.
Check my mill gap with feeler gauge to make sure I had milled fine enough, I used .45 according to the markers but the malt looked quite intact still to my eye so will double check it.
Calibrate my Hydrometer and buy a second for peace of mind.
When I brew I will slow the sparge a bit to the full 90 mins I think I got around 65 -70mins, remember to stir the pre boil up more before sampling and chill my samples down to 20degree rather than using a converter app just to make sure they are accurate, I’m sure the batch will still get drunk when its ready, I’m planning on two weeks in the primary then racking to kegs to condition until Christmas.

Thanks again Kal for the guide and everyone for the forum advice, ill report back on my next brew in a couple of weekends.

..pics to follow, ive got to sort these out when im finished tweaking.

**kal** · Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 2:02 pm Post subject:

Thanks for posting! Looking forward to those pictures!

Heads up to anyone reading from the UK or other 220-240V only countries: If you're interested in a complete control panel kit or just parts, email us at sales@TheElectricBrewery.com. We have complete kits with every single part included available for 240V only countries too (both 30A and 50A kits). Same price as the "regular" 240/120V kits used in North America.

Cheers,

Kal