We want to thank James Waddill (a dedicated BREWTREE customer) for his contribution of this pictoral tutorial showing just how easy it is to use the BREWTREE! James Wife MYLA was kind enough to take the 50+ photo's you see below...and what a GREAT job she did! Thank you Myla!

The tutorial has been untouched and unedited. Click here for unbiased answers to brewtree questions from James Waddill.

Capital Heights Brewery, Baton Rouge, LA

Brewday 20 April 2004

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Adding water salts to HLT.

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Checking HLT sight glass level. Each 1.25" increment = 1 gallon.

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Igniting HLT burner.

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Filling boilkettle with water to prepare sanitizing solution.

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Adding sanitizer to boilkettle.

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Chiller outlet hose (and oxygen line) placed in fermenter.

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Flushing chiller circuit with sanitizer, draining right into the fermenter.

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Dumping excess sanitizer solution.

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Filling boilkettle with rinse water. I'll subsequently empty it through the dump valve, leaving sanitizer in the chiller until the boil is over.

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Checking HLT temperature.

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Filling mashtun with strike water, monitoring volume on sight glass.

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Strike water flowing into mashtun.

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The fun is about to start!

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Adding grain to mashtun. I always turn off HLT burner before climbing ladder.

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Mash-in!

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Stirring the mash thoroughly.

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Mash thoroughly mixed and working away. I'll restir about every 15 minutes.

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Checking strike temp. Usually right on the money, thanks to the BeerSmith software.

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Lid in place on mashtun to aid in temperature retention. Time for a homebrew while the mash works.

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Installing lauter arm.

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Running off cloudy wort under grainbed. 1-2 quarts should have her running clear.

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GENTLY returning first runnings to mashtun.

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Beginning the lauter. I usually open the lauter valve about halfway to avoid lautering too fast.

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Lauter arm in action.

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First wort hops going into the kettle as the lauter commences. I always use leaf hops to achieve a good hopback filter bed.

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Boy, these Chinook hops smell great!

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Wort draining into boilkettle onto the first wort hops.

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Adjusting the lauter rate to keep 2" of liquor over the grain bed.

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Firing up the boilkettle burner. Scott hates that I keep my propane tanks under the burner; probably not be the optimum location, but it works for me.

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Nice rolling boil in the kettle.

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Time for another homebrew and a pipe. A watched kettle never boils over.

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More kettle watching (my favorite part of the process).

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Kettle is steaming away. Note the lid is OFF during the boil.

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In go the boil hops.

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Another hop addition.

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Irish Moss going in.

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End of boil. Steep hops going in.

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Sampling the wort for OG reading.

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Hot wort going into sample chiller. This thing works great!

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Turning on the sample chiller valve.

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Dropping in the hydrometer.

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Reading the OG.

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Pretty damn close to predicted!

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Can't waste that sample!

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Turning on the water supply to the convoluted counterflow chiller. It doesn't work any better than the original SUB dual chiller setup, but I think it looks cool.

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Putting the chiller outflow hose into the fermenter after flushing through the sanitizer.

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BTUs exiting the chiller. That water gets hot!

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I adjust the wort temp by adjusting the wort flow rate through the chiller. Usually takes about 15 minutes for a 7.5 gallon batch.

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TURN OFF THE BURNERS before oxygenating! We aren't making Rauchbier.

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Pitching the yeast. With good oxygenation, starters aren't necessary.

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Hopback filter bed. Whole hops = clear wort.

For a step by step list of how to operate the BREWTREE, see the Brewing Checklist prepared by James for his Capitol Heights brewery. You could print out the list and follow James through the pictoral brew session on this page.

Check out this great plumbing schematic James made to help you follow the BREWTREE brew process - James SUB plumbing schematic

We are also fortunate enough to have received a revised plumbing schematic from another kind customer plumbing schematic provided by:The Kostenbauer's - Brian, Michelle and Alex From Chicago

Address any questions or comments to jwaddill@ochsner.org.

Address criticisms and complaints to sales@brewtree.com!