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My brewday at Mayflower Brewing
So last week I was lucky enough to be invited to brew with the guys at Mayflower Brewing in Plymouth. It was a great experience and I thought I'd share it with you guys because well, it's pretty badass.
We brewed up 23 bbls of their Golden Ale and because they were having problems filtering the porter I got to man the boil kettle for an hour. Let me tell you if you get anxious trying to make sure 8 gallons doesn't boil over, then 800 gallons will give you a freakin' heart attack. Haha, not really but I was kind of nervous at first. Anyways, on with the pictures...
This is their 20bbl brewing system and the control panel. The CP has all the temp displays, water controls, steam jacket controls for the boil kettle, etc. The two boxes on the right control the mash rakes for the mash tun and the pump. The cool thing about those is that they're boil variable controlled and you can set them to whatever speed you want. After brewing on this bad boy I only want to brew on something that has a catwalk.
Mashing in..
Here's shot from standing on the catwalk looking over hot and cold liquor tanks, glycol cooled fermentation tanks (20 and 40 BBL), bright tank used for force carbonating and the Buffalo Trace barrels full of barleywine.
Mash tun after its been emptied. When those mash rakes start moving it sounds like a jet engine taking off.
Filling the boil kettle...
Emptying the boil kettle after whirlpooling and a 30 min rest
A shot of the hardcore heat exchanger. No need to recirculate with this thing. Just straight from the kettle to the fermentation tank.
And a shot of the beer through the sight glass heading into the fermenter.
Another shot of the hot and cold liquor tanks and the barrels. The barleywine should be in select stores as of yesterday.
Some things I learned are if you can brew all grain at home, you can probably brew on this kind of level. It may even be easier; everythings clean in place, pumps transfer everything for you and all of your equipment stays in the same place. The only bad thing is that if you screw up, you screw up a lot more beer at once.
Other things I learned are that I only want to brew on a system with a catwalk and in an area that has a sloped floor with a central drain. Stainless steel everything with tri clover clamps is the way to go. And glycol chilled fermentation tanks are awesome. 
FirePitBrew wrote:
Other things I learned are that I only want to brew on a system with a catwalk and in an area that has a sloped floor with a central drain. Stainless steel everything with tri clover clamps is the way to go. And glycol chilled fermentation tanks are awesome.
Good deal man! I agree with you 100% those things make brewing badass. I need to work on getting some material for a catwalk for the garage! 
HOw was there oxygenation? Was that an inline setup next to the heat exchanger? Triclamps are another must, that I have seriously been thinking about.
Im jealous! Im sure it was a good time
thirsty wrote:
HOw was there oxygenation? Was that an inline setup next to the heat exchanger? Triclamps are another must, that I have seriously been thinking about.
There is an inline set up right before the heat exchanger. They use an air compressor and pump normal air into the lines for the first 10 barrels.
And yeah Andrew it was a hell of a time. The whole day I was thinking, "I can't believe people actually get paid to do this.."
Several years back when Celius Brewery was open in Austin, Tx, my ex and I went on a tour. It was great and looked similar to your pictures except they had huge copper tanks that just took your breath away. Of course the tour came with a complete sampling of all of the different brews available under their label. To bad I didn't like beer back then..................I was a chef not a brewer. lol
Found a bottle of the Mayflower Barleywine at Corks in Mansfield. It was a bit pricier than I expected, 12 bucks, but maybe they're trying to recoop some money from the barrels they used. They were after all previously used for aging Utopias.
FirePitBrew. Awe inspiring post and awesome time! Trying to figure out how I can help at Mack & Jacks. Wonder if I know somebody who knows one of the owners? Damned if I don't, well kind of. He has met Mack, when he went in to get five gallons in a carboy on short notice for a wedding. Normally, I guess they have about a five to seven day waiting list for drop offs. Anyway, he got the favor and of course talked brewing as he to is a home brewer. Now he is trying to set up a private tour for us. Apparently Mack offered. Me, I think I should check in on the special FireBrewPit package..... Got to hold out for that.
Crabnut, if you want to volunteer at a brewery the best advice I can give is to contact the brewer. In person would be ideal and perhaps during tasting hours or after a tour at a brewery. Talk beer and brewing with them so they know you're not an idiot and flat out ask if you can volunteer.
I'm not sure how big Mack and Jacks is but I'd suggest trying to get in touch brew pubs or small production breweries. Some places might allow it, some may not. And some might let you come in and only help out with bottlign and kegging. Who knows, but the only way to find out is ask.
And if they let you volunteer, show up early, don't get in the way, help out as much as you can and it doesn't hurt to bring beer with you. After the brew day we had a tasting with several beers I brought in the tasting room. But consider yourself warned, professional brewers will critique your beer as if its one of their own coming out of the brewery. This is what I did and they're letting me come back and do it again.
FirePitBrew wrote:
This is what I did and they're letting me come back and do it again.
This is the coolest part of the story to me. Will you be going back for the sampling of your beer, or are they going to let you come back for a brewsession? You...for kicks you should invite them to your brewery for a session! HA!
DId they give a case of beer to take home or anything like that?
I'll be going back hopefully in a couple months for another brew session. I think the head brewer Ryan would be down for a homebrew session because he still brews 5 gallon batches himself. And yeah they gave me a mixed 12 pack when I left.
Hopefully, they will need to scrape out that heat exchanger, and you can set Thirsty up with his industrial brew schedule. Hey, then Thirsty can donate his plate chiller to me, and my immersion chiller becomes a great prechiller. I love it when a plan comes together... FirePitBrew, it's all dependent on you sweet talking them out of that monster heat exchanger for Thirsty, right?
Ima player.
Crabnut wrote:
FirePitBrew, it's all dependent on you sweet talking them out of that monster heat exchanger for Thirsty, right?
They were lucky that sucker was bolted down the last time I was there.... and that I can't fit a 20BBL steam jacketed kettle in the back of my truck.
thirsty wrote:
Triclamps are another must, that I have seriously been thinking about.
Hey Thirsty I saw this thread over at HBT and thought of you...They look both bad ass and tempting.
Tri Clovers - another option instead of quick disconnects
Yeah I have seen swag's work before, he is a frequenter at the brews-bros site too. From what I have seen he does excellent work. He just made a nice sanke fermenter cap that replaces the spear in the fermenter, so you can attach airlocks and blowoffs, and thermowells (oh my!)
Tri-clover is the ultimate way to go, but huge$$. I have a total of 9 connections on the rig, so at about $40 a conection it will add up. When I build the 45 gallon system they will definitely be there.
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