Out with the Old - In with the New...

We had a few wee tears welling up in our collective eyes this morning, as our old 10-barrel brewery - mash tun, copper, hot and cold liquor tanks together with 3 FVs plus assorted odds and ends - was loaded on to the lorry above. Destination South to Paul at Northumbrian Real Ale, whom we wish the best of fortune and fun brewing great beer on what was really good kit for us. We did over 2000 brews on it over 12 years before we outgrew it and got to know it all quite well. But nothing stays the same, so we're getting ready inside the brewery to commission our new 120 barrel conditioning tank below (CT7 at the moment) which is being constructed up in Drummuir (in a former distillery, by the way) by the same folk who made the FVs on the lorry above. The dimpling on the sides forms part of the cooling jackets, which will enable us to keep the maturing beer cold, but they'll be hidden by the 50mm of insulation and a thin stainless steel outer skin.

So here's a toast to the old and a welcome to the new!

Slàinte, Ken

Brewery Bar Open!

Great News - the bar at the brewery was officially opened last week. The happy crew pictured are toasting the first evening of tasting, sampling and supping. Pundie was the beer of choice, as it's our special brew for October and November. A fine malty dark amber ale of 1049 OG and 5 % abv. Pleasing to the eye, sensational on the palate, it went down exceedingly well in the bar.

Slàinte, Ken

Laying it on thick!

An action shot of the lads laying the new tarmac in the brewery yard. Until now it's been a mixture of hardcore, rubble, mud and slush, when wet, or hardcore, rubble, dust and more dust whipped up by the prevailing south-westerly winds. I was very impressed with the work and true to their word, after two hours I was able to take our forklift on to the new surface loading up a lorry without damaging the tarmac!

Also makes for super roller-disco!

Cheers, Ken

Spring is here! Break out the beer!

The day dawns over Dunsinane Hill and the River Tay on my cycle to the brewery the other day - the first day of sunlight on my trip to work since winter began!

And the snowdrops are out, although drooping with the cold frosty morn before the life-giving power of the sun has thawed them out.

More stuff from the force of the sun - malt from last season's harvest in the hopper heading up to the mill - the tiny red box in the upper centre of the picture - to make beer!

It's more than a new day dawning for us at Inveralmond, because we handed over the old building to its new owners on Saturday, completely empty and devoid of its recent brewing history, yet we are excited and a little light-headed with our future at the new brewery at 22 Inveralmond Place.

We have made 17 brews so far - that's 146,880 pints...yes, I did check my figures because I can hardly believe it myself, but the dawning of our new era is fabulous - much like the beer! Thanks to all of our customers and drinkers who have made it possible - mòran taing (many thanks).

Slàinte agus fàilte a h-Earrach (cheers and welcome Spring!)

Ken

Live Brewing Action!

Managed to take a wee video of the XXX wort running into the brew kettle or copper, as we call it. So thrill to the joys of the first wort flowing into the copper!

Before the days of stainless steel, the brew kettle, where the wort is boiled (hence brew) with hops, used to be made of copper, as it was the only metal capable of boiling wort over a fire without imparting off-flavours.

Our brew kettle, being a modern device, is stainless steel and is heated with steam jackets, which is why the wort, upon hitting the heating jacket on the floor of the copper soon fills the space with anti-video steam!

Slàinte! Ken

In the Beginning was the Wort...

I took some pics of the wort run from last week's XXX brew below. It's really nice to see such colours after lots of grey stainless steel in the blog pics.

Wort flowing from the mash tun through the Run Off Taps

The Grant filling up with the wort - showing red from the backlight

Such pretty colours making such tasty beer!

We've done 11 brews now on the new kit (that's 33 days work in the old place!), getting the hang of where everything is and thoroughly enjoying it, although because the building is so much bigger, we're walking so much more around, across, up and down stairs, under and over platforms and gantries that the pedometer has gone through 3 batteries already!

Moving House Part 2

We're in at last! Cancel the milk at the old place, let the postie know and find the kettle...

A few snaps from the move to the new brewery on Friday last week - Fergus bringing in pallets of bottles, Grima with 12 tonnes of malt, the floor full of casks and malt, boxes and the fitting out of the office with the phone and computer connections.

Today the phone lines and broadband are all up and running and we've had our first day of complete operations - brewing, cleaning and filling casks, sales and wondering where we're going to put the yeast fridge.

Chuffed to bits with the whole thing and looking forward to finding the kettle.

Moving House Part 1

Time out for a cuppa during the move. Which cup is the Head Brewer's? Mmm...
Pretty FVs all in a row!

Apologies to all for not being busy blogging recently, been kept busy in the planning and moving of all the brewery tanks and vessels from the existing brewery to our new site.

On Thursday last we even managed to move 2 fermenters : 30 barrel FV1 and 10 barrel FV5. Quite an exhausting and tense time for us as FV1 is quite a tall cylindro-conical vessel and had to be very carefully lowered down on to its side for loading on to the flatbed transporter. The lowering operation took 2 hours, whereas the drive 400 metres away took 4 minutes followed by 2 minutes of lifting upright and dropping into position! FV5 by comparison (the small black-clad tank on the right of the FV photo) is quite a short squat dish-bottomed tank which was simply forklifted upright onto the lorry....

This means we have now 160 barrels of fermentation capacity in the new site - which is the eqivalent of 46,080 pints. We still have to move two 20 bbl FVs yet, once we've moved the beer (Thrappledouser and Independence) out of them to the Conditioning Tanks before racking into casks. The CTs (as we call them) will be moved as soon as they are all emptied.

Whilst all this excitement goes on, we're putting the finishing touches to the new brewhouse, sorting out the electrics, cooling systems and giving the pumps and valves and pipework installations a thorough washing and cleaning to make sure everything is going just right before we finish up on the old brewhouse and make the break for the new one.

Tha sinn dochas gum bithidh a h-uile rud ceart gu leor agus gun toisichidh sinn san taigh-gruide againn ur a dh'aithghearr!

We hope that all will be well and that we'll start in our new brewery soon! Slàinte, Ken

Mill Train in Position on Mezzanine

Our Malt Hopper (the table structure in foreground) is now in place with the screw conveyor (the white tube) taking the malt up to the Mill on the mezzanine floor. The BIG BLUE VALVE is the gas main supply.

Upstairs the red Mill crushes the grain and the next bendy white tube conveyor takes it up to the top of the Grist Case with its 1 tonne capacity. When we mash in (mixing the grist with hot water in the mash tun) there is a third screw conveyor to take the grist from the grist case bottom to the Mash Mixer on top of the Mash Tun.
Most of the major construction work is complete in the new brewery but as I've said before, there is still plenty to do - steam boiler, lagging of pipework (all 2.7 kilometres of it!), refrigeration, electrics, motors and pump refurbishment, let alone bringing over the existing fermenters and conditioning tanks from the present brewery....

The Inveralmond Electric Brewery

A very proud and pleased Fergus stands beside our brand new 400 amp, 3 phase electric power supply. The meter/switching box contains its very own cellphone so that meter readings can be sent by SMS back to the electricity company. A very contemporary electricity meter that fits in very well with our new brewery equipment. And now we can put the lights on in the evening!

Hive of Activity

Plenty of welding, cutting, brazing, dieing, crimping and buffing going on at the new brewery. Scaffolding and ladders, pipes and pipe-bridges, overstruts and understruts, flying buttresses and suspended supports...

Looking over the top of the mash tun and wort copper from above the office area. A whole mess of pipes: cold liquor, hot liquor, steam, hot wort, sparge, CIP, condensate, gas - and all in pretty colours too!

Can't wait to get going, but still a great deal to do yet - grist case and grist conveyor, copper chimney, boiler gas connection, boiler chimney, refrigeration system, heat exchanger, cold store, mash tun rake drive gear etc etc...

Men at Work on Big Fuse Box

At long last after many months the new electricity substation for the new brewery has been installed. The electricity people have been digging up the road and laying new cables and are finishing off the connections.

What a modern substation looks like inside - more of a big switch and fuse box really.

The lads pondering where the really big wirecutters are.

View from Upstairs

Here's very proud Managing Director Fergus standing on the mezzanine floor above the offices with the new fermenters with their shiny copper refrigeration pipework and general fitting out work in progress behind.

A view of the FV gantry -transportation bubble wrap still on the vessels themselves. The gantry is to be extended to the left over the copper pipes to meet up with mezzanine floor and the ladder is to be replaced by a proper staircase, complete with landing and naughty step for recidivist brewers!

Our valve hoard! Now should the handles point to the left or the right...?
Ill let you know my decision next week.

Cheers,

Ken

Pipework in Progress

At long last the gas folk have laid a lovely yellow gas pipe from the main over the road to our new brewery. The pipe leads into our shiny British Racing Green meter housing and finishes in a blanked-off end. Still waiting on the meter itself, but the tunnel for the gas pipe into the brewery building is to be dug out tomorrow.

Shiny copper pipes for the internal brewhouse water supply and tank refrigeration system which are being installed all around the walls at high level.

The new grist case awaiting some modifications to increase its capacity to 1 tonne of malt grist - basically an extra strip of stainless steel (316 for the technical) 300mm wide welded onto the sides.

I'll keep you posted with any updates in the new brewery, but certainly at the moment it's very exciting.

Cheerio for now, Ken

New for Old

Here's a photo of our existing Masher (mixer of the malt with hot water) on the left beside our new Masher from the new brewhouse. It gives an idea of how much larger the new brewery will be - instead of mashing in 300 kg of malt with 900 litres of hot water in 20 minutes, we'll be able to do 750 kg malt with 2250 litres in the same time. Wow!

Welcome to Mash Tun Musings!

Welcome to Mash Tun Musings aka the Brewer's blog! I hope you'll like what I have to say - mainly on the subject of beer, but I suspect malt and hops might creep in occasionally as well!

To get things started here's a potted history of our new brewery in full colour from March up to last Friday 17 July.

Steel framework complete with my Raleigh Banana bike to give the building scale.

Concrete floor down and office partitions going in.

Yippee! Big lorries and Hi-Ab cranes with new brewery kit.

Our three new fermenters still in bubble wrap! Wort Kettle and Mash Tun on right.

Top and tailing the Hot Liquor Tank.

A bit of elbow grease from John, Malc and Fiona.

We're still a few months away from the first brew in the new site as there's a good deal of engineering and commissioning work ahead of us, so in the meantime, enjoy your beer!

Slàinte,

Ken