I did however get to witness Mike E’s latest incarnation of this home brewery.

It would seem that Mike is very similar to myself with his brewing approach. For I too am a tinkerer in all things brewing (as well as photographic, software and anything else come to that matter).

One of things I’d mention that I have done differently.

A pump controller:
Similarly to Mike, my pump purchase from ebay was a slightly overrated liquid pump. I believe my pump will handle pumping a head of water to approx 8m or somewhere in the region of 400l/m. Slightly overkill for pump 25l to 50l about 1m over 10 to 20 minutes.

Rather that throttling the output of the pump with a ball value, I invested in a pump (aka ventilation fan from ebay) controller. This will control any a/c motor from idle (basically standstill) to full revs. Costing approx £10 from ebay including delivery, I deem this to be a better and safer solution to restricting the pump flow and presurising the wort.

I know that my hose clips from time to time may slip, and you only have to be vacant from the brewery for 30 seconds to have redecorated in “wort brown”, not something your better half would appreciate.