Droid Brewery

Norfolk Robot Microbrewery

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Pour out your heart and soul

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Nice Porter for a winters night

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I'm back

Finally after a year of hold ups my brewery is back on track. The brewshed is built and the kit is in. There's still a lot of work to be done but I'm actually brewing now which is awesome. I started in the spring in my smaller shed doing 11 litre batches in a tea urn and using a cool box mash tun. This got me going and taught me a lot as well. Made a few mistakes but don't we all? I'll post some pix of the new setup soon. I'm now using a 55 litre brew pot and BIAB setup. I've also started using the Australian method of no chill cubes instead of a wort chiller as it's way cheaper on water and time. Purchased an Inkbird temperature controller which now controls my fermentation fridge, so all in a pretty sweet setup.

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Two bottles of my newest Citra brew

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Design Central

The sourcing of materials is always key in any building project, but can become even more critical when the project has such a modest budget (like ours). Shaun rang me today saying he'd sourced some very reasonably price Dricon 18mm thick plywood for the outer skin of the shed. I wouldn't normally go for this type of shed outer and opt for a feather board or ship lap but both these options are a tad expensive. Anyway with the option of the plywood it reminded me of a shed blog I read last year about someone using plywood and making it look pretty awesome. Here's the blog http://design-milk.com/deconstruction-david-van-alphens-modern-shed/ He routed slots in the plywood and painted them a different colour which I think looks pretty sweet. And considering the plywood is not only waterproof it's also fire retardant so it's pretty good stuff. The routing is not a problem as we have all the kit so it looks like a routed plywood finish is what were going for. Now just need to sort the concrete and the big timber erection (no sniggering ;) can begin.

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Droid Brewery: Bringing brewing into the 21st Century

Norfolk based Droid Brewery are pretty high tech, futuristic innovators and I spoke to one of the founders as they build it all by hand

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Now that Shaun's back we thought we had better crack on with the shed base, as it was superb weather for it this weekend. Here's what we ended up with at the end of the day. All mud dug up and levelled, shuttering complete and 60% of the hardcore smashed and roughly sorted. We now have to calculate how much sand we need, get a damp seal sheet and sort out some concrete. Lots still to do but it's cracking on.

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The build.

Everything has slowed down a tad on the brewery build front since Shaun's mrs has just given birth to there beautiful daughter. Congrats dude. The build will crack on once life returns to normal. :) On another note I've been looking at buying a Raspberry Pi kit from eBay so we can start playing and setting up the control side of our setup. Might as well if the build has slowed down. It will also give us a chance to source some parts for the tanks.

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Well we finally started digging the footings for the #brewshed we’ve now laid half the shuttering and pretty much dug all the earth out that we need shifted. Next time we’ll dig the last bit out then start adding the thick layer of hardcore. Then it’s a thin layer of sand, then a damp proof sheet and then concrete. Once the concretes gone off its straight onto setting up the main timber frame. We can’t wait to get started on this stage. Although we still have to source a load of feather board or ship lap for the outside.

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Emile is amazing.. So you need a webcam in the shed so guests can watch the process. Bob

Cheers Bob. We may have a webcam setup when we get the raspberry pi installed. ;)

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Finally picked up the tanalised wood for the brewshed frame thanks to Mr Shaun. This little lot should give is the size frame were after. :) Once we've dug the footings there's some shuttering timber hidden in the pile ready to setup for laying the concrete. We're going to make sure we lay the hardcore, then a layer of sand the a damp proof membrane. Then lay the concrete on top. We'll keep you updated when the next stage happens.

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Morning wood

We finally pick up the brew shed wood tomorrow. Picking up the flat bed lorry to transport it all to the beach house. Can't wait because this means once we've laid the concrete base we can start the frame. I'll post some photos tomorrow of the wood. I think we've got 32 lengths of 2x3 tanalised timber and some bigger sections for the roof beams.

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Did a crappy render just to show the shed in place. It's not quite to scale but it gives you an idea. I think I'll put marker posts in the next photo so it will help me laying out the Solidworks model. The next render will have proper wood textures and realistic lighting. :)

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The area is now clear ready to start digging the shed base. I've roughly priced up how much cement and ballast we'll need so it's pretty much all go once we've laid the hardcore.

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Nice selection for tonight. For research purposes only of course

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Shaun's finally got the design of the shed nearing completion in Solidworks, and I've dragged my tank and table layout in to see if were okay for space. Next is laying in the sink and other storage/tables, which will then give us an idea of whether we need to go any bigger......budget dependant obviously. I'm going to measure the surrounding land around the shed this weekend and add it to the render so we get a better idea of how the shed will look in its final position.

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Nice selection for the weekend.