Monday 26 November 2018

A visit to Bath Ales brewery

The latest IBD Southern Section seminar was at Bath Ales, a brewery bought by St Austell in 2016.  They've obviously been investing a lot of money as the were shiny new things everywhere.

Brewhouse has a Mash Conversion Vessel, Lauter Tun, Copper and Whirlpool as well as a hop infusion vessel.  The brew length is 90hl. If I remember rightly they're currently brewing twice a day.




They have a four roller mill.


More space is devoted to packaging.


There were lots of casks soaking when we visited as they'd come back skanky. If only publicans would cork them cleaning would be a lot less effort!


The cask washer was bought by Bath Ales from St Austell, so when St Austell bought Bath Ales they bought back their old kit!



Here's underneath the brewhouse:


And there's the hop infusion vessel:


The flow plate looks pleasingly simple:


The bottling line looks very flash, but as is a tradition or an old charter or something it wasn't running when we were there.





They've got a cross flow filter from Pentair which doesn't need a centrifuge. One of the talks at the seminar provided information on this and I really must write it up for the blog. I know Alan has a keen interest in kieselguhr free filtration.







It was promised that the slides from the seminar will be put online, but as far as I know this hasn't happened yet, and unless this changes me writing up my notes will be the best you'll get.







2 comments:

  1. How is a mash conversion vessel different from a mash tun?

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    Replies
    1. MCVs have an agitator and a steam jacket so can carry out temperature stepped mashes, but they don't have a slotted base like a mash tun so the mash is pumped to the lauter tun for wort separation.

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