Brewery upgrade

[Stu H]

So after a whole lot of stuffing around, I've finally gotten my act together and upgraded my brewery somewhat.

I got the rusty steel bench off trademe, thought about sanding and painting it, and decided I couldn't be bothered, though did manage to dril a couple of bolts and construct a makeshift shelf. It's pretty awesome to have the gas burner off the ground, and at a decent working height!

Also note the cool immersion chiller Jo from Liberty made me a couple years back... Now I've got a pump I can finally use the whirlpool attachment.

I got a weldless sightglass/thermometer from www.brewhardware.com. They were awesome to deal with, and I'm really happy with the final result. It was really great to actually have some idea of my kettle volumes.

My girlfriend was in the states recently, so I loaded her up with a decent order from www.morebeer.com, including a march pump. Note the wonky enclosure - I've got to be the world's worst carpenter. After brewing on the setup yesterday, I've decided I'm going to change the fittings to have right angle ones to reduce kinking in the hoses (hard to explain but I'll post up more pics later).

Using a pump is a bit of a trip. It's going to take me a few sessions to get used to the whole thing. Yesterday I lost siphon a bunch of times, spilt a whole bunch of hot wort on myself, and stuffed up the cleanup so I had no hot water to flush the pump with. Vorlauf-ing with it however, was amazing. 

[Dougal]

Brilliant! Looks great. That's exactly what I'm setting up this week- camlocks and all. (Plans for a direct fired mash tun too, but that's down the track.)
Are you finding the hoses are kinking just because of the angle they exit the pump, or would more length help? What was the postage cost like from Brewhardware?

[Tilt]

Nice upgrades Stu.  The swappa crate amongst the other bling gives the whole lot credibility and grunt!

[Stu H]

Cheers! Yeah the hoses will be less ah, "kinky" once I get the stainless elbows on the pump. Shipping was $30 US, arrived pretty quickly too.

Yeah bro, that swappa has been part of the setup since day 1!

[Stu H]

Just put the stainless elbows on the pump, I think it's going to make a decent difference, and mean I can shorten some hoses too.

I should also mention Evan Davies was the person who seriously hooked me up with the camlock fittings & ball valves. Legend!