I got a new brewery recently, the MoreBeer 1550 “Tippy.” It is a 3-tier brewery with a sturdy frame, three 15-gallon (58 L) vessels made of heavy-grade stainless steel and all stainless fittings. A pump moves liquids around the brewery. 

Some folks recommend that brewers first do a “water brew” on their system, heating and pumping the water around the brewery to find out such things as how long it takes to heat the brewing liquor, the volume of the dead spaces (under the false bottom in the lauter tun, in the tubing, etc.) and the evaporation rate in the kettle. This is a very prudent way to approach learning about a new brewery, so of course I didn’t do that — I just jumped right in. 

My first “test” brew was an IPA. I knew going in it was going to be a learning experience, and I hadn’t even calibrated the HLT sight glass or made a dip stick for the kettle. Still, I figured I could wing it and still crank out a decent brew. And, more importantly, I’d get to know the system so my next brew would go more smoothly. I ended up with a little less volume, and slightly higher gravity, than I expected, but I think the beer will be OK. (It’s kegged now, but I haven’t sampled any yet.)

Last weekend, I brewed my first “real” batch of beer with my brewery. I made a dry stout, a 10-gallon version of the Murphy’s Stout clone in BYO’s “150 Classic Clones” book. Before brewing, I calibrated the sight glass (in liters) and made a dipstick for the kettle. I did the calibration at “room temperature,” knowing that the volume expands by about 4% percent when the wort is boiled.

My brewday went smoothly except for one thing. During wort collection, the pump kept losing it’s prime. I had to stop the pump, reprime and get the sparge loop running again multiple times. This was something I did not encounter during my test brew. With all the fiddling with the pump, I ended up running off the wort a bit more quickly than I expected. Still, I basically hit my target gravity (within one GP) and target volume (I was short by maybe a couple quarts). So, not a bad inauguration for the brewery. 

The biggest advantage of my new brewery is the cooling is much quicker. Here in Texas, my tap water is typically around 75 °F. Because of this, I need to use a pre-chiller and an ice bath even to reach ale fermentation temperatures. On my new brewery, the wort chiller has a wort circulation option with it.

The wort chiller is a copper immersion chiller, but it has a third input for wort. Wort flows from the kettle and is then pumped back into the kettle so it is forced past the chiller at an acute angle. The result is that hot wort is always contacting some of the coolest coils in the chiller and a small whirlpool is formed within the chiller. This recirculation led to me cooling 10 gallons of wort more quickly than I typically chilled 5 gallons, and with less than half the ice. (The copper tubing is thicker, so I don't know if I saved water or not.)

I hope to put my new brewery to a lot of use in the next few months.