Glycol, a New Pump and more!

 We have made good headway with our plans for glycol, CO2 and power for all the necessary applications.  After the walk in cooler was assembled, we can now mount the glycol reservoir and pump and install the lines that will take chilled water to all the tanks.  This is a tedious planning process and ordering the fittings can be overwhelming.  We think we have a good plan, especially for such a temporary location.  Parts have been ordered and installation awaits!

We received our brewery pump, so now things feel exceptionally real!  This is one mega pump and with wheels, we can drag it around to perform any number of tasks.  Today we used it to pump water into the storage tank...ah....so very interesting!

Daren has been spending lots of time tuning up the kegerator, which we just began using.  We brewed a stout a couple weeks ago, which made its way into kegs.  This beer was a "dry" stout fermented with an English yeast that worked really quickly.  After a small learning curve with a refractometer, the beer landed at 5.5% abv, has a dark color and a nutty taste.  We are excited that the beer was rather successful since it had been the first beer we had ever brewed on the new pilot system. 

We also brewed last Friday.  We made a "use up what's in the pantry" beer.  This was a combination of a few malts we needed to use up, some "new" hops and recycled yeast from the stout and some Saison yeast Daren has been holding on to.  It is still fermenting, but we'll have updates soon.

We have also been tuning up the interior in the meantime.  Jared has been helping us make some changes to the lighting as well as fixing all the building's electrical problems.  We are just about done the reconstruction of the register counter where our POS will live.  With a little cleaning (and the lack of a pandemic), we'll be ready have people come taste and buy beer!

Speaking of buying beer, we just learned today that we are officially licensed by both the Federal Government and the State of VT to sell beer.  Hooray!

Tomorrow, we pick up a our long awaited 5BBL fermentors.  They have been living at Green Empire Brewing in Colchester.  We are excited to fill out our brewery!

It might be hard to fill this reservoir...

The glycol pump and tank awaiting final rating location

Custom Built Cart for the chiller and pump

Copper Arrives for the Glycol Return line

Daren, fascinated with how quite this new pump is!

Planning the system, aka, trying to remember engineering school


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