Fermentation cabinet and brewing vessel stand

Posted on January 21, 2017 by james

With the paint dry it was time to build a stand for the brewing vessels and an insulated (and heated) fermentation cabinet.

The fermentation cabinet is really nothing more than a double-skin cupboard insulated with 50mm of cellulose board insulation. Inside it is heavily varnished to make and spillages easier to clean and there’s support for a shelf, a 40W greenhouse heater and a 100mm PC fan to circulate the air. The greenhouse heater is controlled by an STC-1000 temperature controller, meaning I have some control over the temperature inside the cabinet. There’s no cooling system, so there’s little I can do if the temperature inside rises above the required level, but most of the time here it will be colder than required for fermentation. I fixed the STC-1000 into the door so I can operate it from the outside and easily see the temperature.

The HLT will stand on top of the fermentation cabinet to allow a gravity feed into the mash tun placed on a stand alongside. The stand is just a wooden frame with a spare piece of kitchen worktop fixed on top.

(The migration of kit from the house into the shed has already started 🙂

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Beer shack progress

Posted on January 21, 2017 by james

Once the walls were insulated and lined they needed painting. I used an exterior grade white paint including a fungicide for the walls and ceiling as there will certainly be some condensation once I start using it.

The floor has also been painted to help keep dust under control.

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New brewing pots arrive

Posted on January 21, 2017 by james

As part of my move to a dedicated brewing space I decided to build a new brewing setup with dedicated vessels for different stages of the process. Rather than use the plastic “buckets” that I’ve made do with so far I decided to move to stainless steel for these new items. Discussion at the time seemed to point to Bergland as a good source of large cooking pots that would be suitable. I found them on the German ebay site and contacted them to arrange the purchase and delivery of three pots: a 100l stock pot to build the HLT (hot liquor tun), an insulated 80l pot for the mash tun and another 100l stock pot for the boiler.

A short while later three boxes arrived:

There wasn’t really much in the way of protection for the pots other than the cardboard box which did worry me, but they all seemed to be ok:

And here’s the 80l insulated pot in all its glory:

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Swimming, 20th January 2017

Posted on January 21, 2017 by james

Unlike yesterday, a quiet session in the pool again for my third Swimfit session. In the end I did:

5 x one length front crawl, one length backstroke, easy pace
One minute rest
6 x one length breaststroke, medium pace, 20 seconds rest
Four lengths quick front crawl
15 seconds rest
Four lengths front crawl kick
15 seconds rest
Four lengths front crawl pull
15 seconds rest
Four lengths front crawl
15 seconds rest
4 x 1 length front crawl sprint, 30 seconds rest
Four lengths front crawl, easy pace

After that I swam 500m front crawl practising turns at the deep end and a final easy-paced 100m front crawl.

I’ve not swum backstroke for a while and found it very hard physically. My breaststroke seems to be improving though. I’m thinking more about keeping my heels together from the end of the kick through the recovery phase so that my lower legs are as far as possible behind my body and not generating any more drag than necessary. My feeling is that my arm pull is a bit variable though. I shall be trying to work on that.

Total distance this month: 27,700m
Total distance this year: 27,700m

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Mark 1 Potato Cannon

Posted on January 20, 2017 by james

Search youtube for potato cannon and you’ll find loads of examples. My son was keen to try building one so we came up with a plan to build this one from bits of pipe we had lying about. It didn’t really need much. The “combustion chamber” is a 100mm waste water rodding fitting. One end is completely closed off with a blanking plate and the other with a reducer down to 2″. The entire thing is mounted on a wooden carriage. That’s pretty much it:

We put a couple of bolts through the blanking plate on the end and wired each one to the wires of the spark generator from a barbeque lighter. The button for the spark generator was just glued to the blanking plate using Araldite. I also wired the blanking plate in place as unlike the reducer which was a solvent-weld fitting, it was just a push fit piece:

On the inside a couple of bare copper wires are fixed on the bolts and bent so they produce a nice fat spark when the button is pressed. They’re just visible at the bottom of the rodding eye here:

To fire the cannon, a potato is rammed down the barrel to the end. A quick burst of hairspray is squirted into the chamber through the rodding eye and the cover is screwed on. Push the spark generator button and away you go. Or the potato does, at least.

The first test firing wasn’t entirely successful. The potato did shoot out, but the rodding eye cover also blew off. There was clearly also a lot of stress on the barrel.

We shortened the barrel by about 30cm and fitted a retaining chain to the cover to keep it in place.

The second test was far more successful. The potato cleared some well-grown sycamore trees about 60m away and was still travelling upwards when we lost sight of it.

Next we should make a video of it in operation.

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The Beer Shack is born

Posted on January 20, 2017 by james

I’ve been brewing my own beer for years, but doing a ninety-minute rolling boil of five gallons of wort in the kitchen has never made me the most popular person in the house so when the thermostat on the boiler died I decided to have a rethink of how I did everything. I came up with a plan to move everything to an insulated shed in the garden which would solve the issues with steaming up the kitchen (not to mention the occasional sticky floor) and allow me to organise all my kit in one place rather than storing it all over the house. My son christened the shed “The Beer Shack”.

The following pictures show the start of the project, before the EPDM roof went on and waiting to fill the walls with insulation before lining the inside.

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Swimming, 19th January 2017

Posted on January 20, 2017 by james

Very busy in the pool today making it very difficult to swim lengths, but I managed 4 x 500m front crawl and then another 10 x 50m practising turns at the deep end. Control of breathing is starting to get a little better.

Total distance this month: 26,100m
Total distance this year: 26,100m

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First results from the micrometeorite collector

Posted on January 19, 2017 by james

A couple of years ago I posted about making a micrometeorite collector that used a neodymium magnet to capture magnetic material in flow of rainwater from our house roof.

Months later we removed the magnet from the collector and collected and dried all the material we found. Here’s what we ended up with:

Obviously we can’t know that the material genuinely originates from meteors, but it’s interesting nonetheless. I think the best explanation for a terrestrial origin would be that it was carried up to the roof by birds that perch on the ridge.

We collected more material a second time.

I worked out at one point what the estimated weight of meteorite material should be in a given area based on estimated figures for the entire amount falling on the Earth in one year. I should weigh what we have collected and see how it compares. I’ll post about that another time.

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Swimming, 18th January 2017

Posted on January 18, 2017 by james

A shorter session today and I got some “toys” out too:

10 lengths front crawl
One minute rest
4 x 1 length front crawl kick, 20 seconds rest
4 x 1 length front crawl pull, 20 seconds rest
4 x 1 length front crawl, fast pace, 15 seconds rest
2 x 2 lengths front crawl, fast pace, 15 seconds rest
4 x 1 length front crawl fast, rest until recovered
10 lengths front crawl swim down

(These are not my session plans, btw. They’re what I have swum based on the ASA “Swimfit” sessions. Sadly it looks as though they’re discontinuing that programme.)

The kick set was pathetic compared with what we’d normally expect the club swimmers to manage, but my thighs were really burning by the end of it. I was pleased to give them a rest for the pull set afterwards.

I also fitted in another 500m doing front crawl turn practice at the deep end. Still working on the foot placement, though it was getting better.

Another thing I’m going to have to think in the turns about is timing of breathing. I have only ever learned to breathe to my left when swimming front crawl and if I arrive at the “T” on the “wrong arm” then taking the last breath before the turn becomes tricky. I accept that in fact I need to develop the capacity to swim longer on a single breath, but at the moment exhaling during the turn leaves me gasping for air by the time I surface (and I so hate being anywhere near the flags when I take my first breath). I should learn to breathe to my right which would help, but as I get better at the turn I hope I will be able to control my breathing so I’m more comfortable coming out of the turn regardless.

Total distance this month: 23,600m
Total distance this year: 23,600m

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Swimming, 17th January 2017

Posted on January 18, 2017 by james

A very simple swim today: 4 x 500m front crawl, followed by another 500m practising front crawl turns at the deep end of the pool. I can’t do them at the shallow end yet because I don’t have very good control of the angle I come off the wall and often end up hitting the floor on the way out. Getting good foot placement on the wall is key, I think.

The pool was very busy. Obviously those New Year resolutions haven’t worn off yet 🙂

Total distance this month: 22,000m
Total distance this year: 22,000m

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