From the Gleam of Burnished Copper to the Starbright Sheen of Stainless Steel

Came across some old snaps from my brewing past the other day so I thought I'd share them with you.

AD 1995. A young(ish) Ken standing beside his pride and glory - the 100hl wort kettle and lauter tun of the Redback Brewery in Melbourne. The copper brewhouse was a German 1951 Ziemann beauty and I used to brew the award-winning South German-style wheat beer 'Redback', a Munich Dark Lager and a Bohemian pilsner, basking in the copper gleam! The copper had to be polished with huge tubs of Brasso every year - a two-day labour of love...

AD 2000. Cleaning the original Inveralmond mash tun at the old premises. Ah, the power of the green scratchy pad! But as you are probably well aware, cleanliness is next to Godliness. This is the mash tun that won us the 2001 Champion Beer of Scotland.

AD 2011. Beside Big Bertha with her 100 hl of Blackfriar due for Finland. This is the tank that produced the Blackfriar that won Gold at the SIBA 2011 Strong Bitter Competition in Edinburgh last week.
You could perhaps call this piece from the full head of curly brown locks to the glistening pate of receding hairlines!

Ah memories...

Slainte, Ken

Santa's Swallie grainout is Go!

Here's an action shot of Duncan, our latest addition to the Downriver Barleymen - an anagram for guess what? Answers on a postcard, please.

But to our blog of today...He's graining out or removing the spent grain or draff from the mash tun and he's holding a shovel, yet he's not digging out the mash tun, as we have commissioned a big auger, or Archimedes' Screw, for taking the spent grain directly from the mash tun into the hopper and then down to the bottom of the auger and up through the wall and then dropping into the awaiting trailer, as shown below.

We're thrilled with the auger and how it works and it means that the inside of the brewery is much tidier and cleaner without the big boxes that we used to dig the grain out into and furthermore it gives us more floor space to put more fermenters/conditioning tanks/malt pallets...Hooray!

For the beer enthusiasts out there, the spent grain in the pictures is from this year's first brew of Santa's Swallie.

I think this means that the festive season appproaches, so I'd better get on with the Xmas presents...

Slàinte, Ken

ps Anagram unscrambled - Inveralmond Brewery