Building your own brewery

Building your own brewery is relatively simple yet hugely satisfying. You need a few simple tools, some basic techniques , quality parts you know work together and some instructions.​​

techniques

There are a couple of simple metal working techniques you need to master:

• Drilling holes
• Making larger holes.​

DRILLING HOLES

Drilling into stainless is difficult, and if the metal gets hot it hardens even more. but a few basic rules help:

• ​first use a sharp drill bit that will cut rather than wear a hole.
• use a slow speed on the electric drill - and slow means very slow
• cool the area with cutting fluid or water regularly
• we start with a 4 mm cobalt drill bit ( bought individually from the likes of tooled up)
• cover the area to be cut with duct tape; it makes marking out easier and starting the hole easier too.
• before you mark mark the hole very firmly with a sharp centre punch - firm enough to leave a dent in the pot
• locate your 4 mm drill bit into this dent, slowly start the drill and watch carefully for signs of the drill cutting, use a medium hard pressure
• be aware of the drill binding as it breaks through.
• Pound shop penetrating oil makes a great cutting fluid ( as does lard according to a model engineering forum I've just read!)

​The key is sharp and slow!

Once the pilot hole has been drilled it needs opening out to accept either a holesaw arbour or QMax cutter.​

making larger holes

There are two ways of making larger holes in stainless; holesaws and Qmax cutters. Holesaws are better for thicker pots above 1.6mm but are more expensive than QMax cutters. QMax cutters are simple to use , leave a clean hole and wear less than holesaws

the following instructions are for cutting a 21mm hole in a pot.

1. First drill a 4mm pilot hole as described above
2. Using a sharp 11mm cobalt drill enlarge the pilot hole. Again take it slowly, use a cutting fluid and be aware of the drill binding on break through.
3. Take the cutter apart and lubricate the threads
4. Put the end of the cutter inside the pot ( the three curved 'teeth' face inwards )
5. From the outside re-thread the two parts together and do the threaded bolt up finger tight.
6. You'll need a long and good quality 8mm Allen key for the next section (Mine came from Aldi and they're more than good enough)
7. Attach the Allen key to the bolt,  then slowly turn until you feel the cutter bite.
8. Then using the full leverage available rotate the Allen key a few turns
9. Once the cutter is through remove it from the hole
10. You may wish to tidy the hole up using a fine, round section file or a Dremel type multi-tool.

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