Chris's Blog (4)

Bought a 15m length of 1/4" copper pipe from TradeMe, $71 inc postage:

Filled it with water and stuck it the freezer...

Tip: to fill the pipe, stick one end underwater in the sink and suck the water through. Learnt this after getting quite a lot of water on myself and the floor.

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Just a quick one to show you my new (well actually secondhand off Trade Me - $111) 60L kettle and the new deluxe kettle stand I built to go with it ($0).

The original stool.

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Here is a rough idea of the first stage of my brewery - the kettle. Apologies, my drawing skills didn't develop much after the age of five.

There is a copper immersion chiller up top (bought 12m of copper tube for this for $69 from Trade Me) which goes into a 60L stainless cook pot I bought from Trade Me for $111. 

Next is a weldless bi-metal…

I had a break from brewing for a couple of years and am just starting up again. So far I have a bitter bottled, plus a golden ale and a lager bubbling away. I just brew from extract at the moment, no kettle involved, although I do boil hops and add to the wort. 

I've been brewing like this for about 7 or 8 years now and have had some great results, with one or two mishaps along the way. But now I'm…