Brasserie du Tilleul

Intro #

Time to rebuild in France! One day after landing in the northern hemisphere, I got to work to set up a small brewery in Hattmatt.

The place: an old barn. Thick walls, dust, rusty old tools, and even an abandoned swallow's nest. When my grandparents had cows in there, the resident cows were called Jeanette, Lisette, and Marguerite. A dozen hens live next door.

The brewery name comes from the huge "tilleul" (french for lime tree) in the garden, under which family and friends love to hang, have a drink, a chat or take a nap.

Pictures #

The brewery lives in a barn built in 1850.

It is very dusty inside, covers and tarps are indispensible. We will see over time if I can prevent infections despite the dirt.

The "grain gorilla" malt mill. I used the provided crank for 30 seconds, got bored, and proceeded with an electric drill.

Mashing in a 36L stainless steel kettle and heating sparge water in a sterilizer. For the second brew, I did a dunk sparge in the sterilizer. We installed a pulley on the ceiling to lift the bag after the mash.

First rolling boil, it happened so fast! The 3500W induction plate is great.

Ghetto chilling setup. First, I circulate water directly from the tap, into an immersion chiller, then into a barrel outside (so the water can be reused in the garden). After a bit, I switch to a closed circuit: bucket with pump, water and iced bottles -> immersion chiller -> back in the bucket.

The kettle and its content are now too heavy for me to just pour stuff in the fermenter, so I just use a sanitized siphon. I don't trust the kettle tap just yet.

Cold side and storage: fridge with temperature controller for fermentation, additional temperature controller and sleeping bag for fermenting at higher temps (kveik!). Currently, there's a lager in the fridge and a golden ale in the sleeping bag.

What next #

Serving fridge, two beer lines and prepping the kegs and CO2 setup for the first beers!

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