New, Bigger Wort Boiler (Brewing Copper)

My new wort boiler on the left sat next to my original that has now become my hot liquor tank to command my mash tun during the mash and subsequent sparging of the brew grist.

After realising too late my original boiler was too small to handle sufficient sweet wort for a 5 gallon brew (see my earlier post about my aluminium stock pan) and having to make a half size brew for my first all grain brew day I have got hold of a much larger pan and converted it into a wort boiler.

As you can see in the above photo I've used the same type of valve (less than a fiver from Leroy Merlin) and on the inside I've used the hop filter from the original boiler. I have fitted the valve slightly lower than on the original for a couple of reasons:

1) The rounding of the sides into the base of the larger pan is less than that of the smaller pan (part of the reason my tap was higher up and not so obvious in the piccy).

2) When filled with just water, the pan drained under syphon from the tap leaving only around 300ml of water behind. However during the brew - possibly due to the restriction of the hops around the filter - the syphon effect broke before the boiled wort was fully run off - losing me more than 300ml of the precious liquid.

The lower tap means I've had to turn my hop filter sideways due to the two, copper 90deg elbows connecting the filter pipe to the tap. I have seen other coppers with the filter to one side so I don't think this is an issue and my wort chiller still fits no problem.

Old hop filter fitted into new wort boiler. Tilted to the side to allow for a lower fitting of the tap valve.

Testing this new setup with water, I achieved a virtually total run off (less than 150-200ml left in the pan) and that was without having a length of tubing running from the down pointing outlet pipe.

Looking forward to getting a second brew on this week although I may be brave and wait until next week when I have a friend visiting us who's bringing some more grains from Blighty.

New Gas Burner For Wort Boiler/Copper

I saw these gas burners in a branch of Gamme Vert in Limoges a couple of weeks ago going for 75 Euros each and was going to get one this week. Luckily I called into our local branch in Ambazac today and picked one up for just 42 Euros!!!

3 ring 9.2 KW Gas Burner - Cast iron and brass manifold with taps.

Here's the website for the makers http://www.sonarema-fondex.com/rechaud-8004.php for those of you who don't have access to a Gamme Vert although of course it might be worth checking out eBay etc

The savings alone have more than covered the gas regulator and tubing (not included) as well as leaving some left over to go into my new (insulated shiny) Mash Tun fund.

This, with my new, larger capacity copper (post coming soon) means I shall be getting another brew on very soon. I ordered a load of bottles and capping gear last night from Brouwland (bit of a dodgy Frames based website - so no links to individual products as the browser address bar only shows the homepage url... SEO? I think not. - but good payment handling and order confirmation service so far)

New Stock Pot - Time To Upgrade My Wort Boiler

After realising too late my stock pot I'd bought for my wort boiler was too small!!! Argghh! - (see this post about my supposed 34l wort boiler) - I have got hold of another, much larger one. Unforetunately I've got a very busy week ahead - the joys of freelance and no holidays - so I don't think I'll get it converted until next week.

Lessons learned from pan 1, I'll be fitting the hop strainer a bit lower in this one. Although when empty it syphons to virtually empty the interference of the hops around the filter caused my last brew to stop as I was draining it to the FV costing me around 500ml of hopped wort.

My existing wort chiller also still fits perfectly so no need for any adjustments there.

Watch this space for my second brew. in case you missed it, here's my first all grain home brew.