Bottom of the Barrel

[Woebegone-by-sea]

During lockdown I decided to improve on my last brewery layout (Gone for a Burton), as with everything, you improve or hope to, the more practice you get. With work well under way on Bottom of the Barrel I have decided to show you all what I've been up to. I was lucky enough to invest in a cricut cutter which has helped no end and allowing me to produce everything from windows to tanks and brewing equipment. the first building I produced with help of a cricutter was a tube station for my dads home layout of london. This worked well and was a great test to allow me to see what I could produce.  

 

The first Building I have made is the Brew house, this is based on The Trent Brewery in burton on trent, which still exists today but as housing. The history of the brewery is a complex one, owned and built in 1881 by Thomas Sykes. By 1893, Sykes had ceased brewing in burton, and the brewery became the Trent brewery company, after just 3 years Trent Brewery company entered voluntary liquidation. In 1898 Everards of leicester took over the lease, where they continued to brew until 1983. In 1984 it became the Heritage Brewery Museum, which closed in 1995. then owned for two short periods by Bevvied Bull Brewery (1998-1999), and lastly Burton Old Cottage Brewery (2000-2001) it finally closed becoming housing in 2010. 

 

I have decided for it to remain the Trent Brewery Company, and in an alternative history, they did not go into liquidation. But continued to brew well into the next century, maintaining good relationships with local brewers who they contract bottle for and purchase malt from. This will allow a wide variety of traffic and use of stock from my previous layout (Gone for a Burton). 

 

Over the upcoming posts I hope to update you with the progress. 

 

Cheers Joe 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 9, 2022 by Woebegone-by-sea

[Woebegone-by-sea]

I started by designing my building for Cutting on my Cricut, I decided to use it for cutting the Mount board and the styrene sheet to test its capabilities. I found the thicker the material the simpler the cut the better, where as thinner materials could cope with more complex cuts. I drew it all out on the Cricut's software, which mainly uses basic shapes, but you can slice and weld shapes together to form more complicated ones. In terms of the Cricut I can highly recommend, especially if you are familiar with working with shapes on Microsoft word or Inkscape. The Cutter allows precise cuts of repetitive shapes and allows time to begin assembly of other items.

 

Now the Building starts to take shape and received its red primer ready for brick painting. 

 

Cheers Joe

 

 

 

 

Edited April 9, 2022 by Woebegone-by-sea

[TechnicArrow]

That's looking excellent! Did you use the cutter on the brick plasticard too or was that done by hand? Either way that looks like some speedy progress on a unique building, I'm somewhat envious

[Guest]

Your modelling of the building is looking very nice. 

[hayfield]

Excellent piece of modelling, I am in the process of building a few warehouses out of scratch aid kits, even with these it takes time when you alter (kit bash) them 

 

I am looking forward to seeing them and the layout evolve. In an earlier thread a couple of years ago photos of Benskins Brewery railway system in Watford which was very interesting as if weaved into various buildings 

[hayfield]

Excellent piece of modelling, I am in the process of building a few warehouses out of scratch aid kits, even with these it takes time when you alter (kit bash) them 

 

I am looking forward to seeing them and the layout evolve. In an earlier thread a couple of years ago photos of Benskins Brewery railway system in Watford which was very interesting as if weaved into various buildings 

[Woebegone-by-sea]

On 22/01/2022 at 21:27, TechnicArrow said:

That's looking excellent! Did you use the cutter on the brick plasticard too or was that done by hand? Either way that looks like some speedy progress on a unique building, I'm somewhat envious

 Thankyou, I used the cutter to cut the larger pieces of plasticard, which it cut well, and was particularly good for cutting window openings. The main proportion of time is spent drawing out the cut lines and then assembly, smaller and more complex cuts are done by hand. Although it may seem quick progress it has been evolving over the last 6 months, however I felt that it was better to write it in snippits. 

[Woebegone-by-sea]

5 hours ago, hayfield said:

Excellent piece of modelling, I am in the process of building a few warehouses out of scratch aid kits, even with these it takes time when you alter (kit bash) them 

 

I am looking forward to seeing them and the layout evolve. In an earlier thread a couple of years ago photos of Benskins Brewery railway system in Watford which was very interesting as if weaved into various buildings 

Thank you for your kind comments, you cant beat a good kit bash and can make some amazing building as unique as scratch buildings. I'm quite lucky as I have time due to working shifts, however this causes problems attending shows! I will have a look for the Benskins article, thankyou for the heads up, I always find brewery railways interesting. 

[Woebegone-by-sea]

Good Morning all, once I had completed putting the bricks onto the main card structure, I primed the building with Halfords Red Lead, and then began to paint the bricks using Humbrol Brick, once complete I began to pick out separate bricks using different colours, which I mixed on a pallet, varying from light to dark.

 

When I'd finished painting I began the roofs construction, I cut this by hand and tried different angles in attempts to get it right. I initially thought that I had got it right, but after studying photo's of the prototype I decided that the angle was to steep and required some adjustment, I pulled the roof a part and adjusted the angle until it looked right. The roof angle now looks right, and so, I produced the raised wooden section. Then I built the louvers up, test fitted and primed them ready for top coat. These can be seen in place, finally I painted the raised wooden section of the roof. Next design and placement of the equipment within the low relief brewhouse, fermenting room and boiler house. 

 

Thanks For Reading

Joe

 

 

 

 

Edited April 9, 2022 by Woebegone-by-sea

[Woebegone-by-sea]

Good Afternoon All, 

      todays update covers the design of the plant within the Brewhouse building. I feel its important to try and get this right as although not highly visible it can be seen, as the building is lit. I have the benefit of working in a brewery myself and, a good knowledge of historical brewing techniques with the Volunteer work I do at the National Brewery Centre (Bass Museum) .

 

The Brewing process starts with the intake of Malt, this can be done either through the sack hoist or through the pit used for hopper wagons, this then travels via conveyors in the basement to bucket elevators in the center of the building where it moves up to the Malt Mills, 2 x Roller Mills remove the husks and breaks the grain down to a flour like substance allowing for access to the Starch that will become the fermentable sugars later in the process. The Flour like substance now called grist moves via screw elevators to the top floor and the grist case. This is where all the grain used in a brew is accumulated, be this different malt types, barley and even wheat.

 

When ready to begin brewing, slide at the bottom of the grist case is opened and the brewing liquor (water) at between 60 and 70 degrees centigrade is added in  at the steels masher below. this saturates all the grain as it enters the mash tun, a wooden copper lined vessel with a mesh floor. Here the starches are extracted from the grain converted to fermentable sugars, the mash is kept heated and gradually colour is also extracted from the grain. once complete, the vessel is drained through the mesh floor below which seperates the husks and larger parts of grain which go to animal feed, the Wort as is is now called drops into underback. As it drains Liquor is sprayed on the top in a process known as sparging, which allows the brewer to gain as much as possible out of the grain. 

 

The Under Back is a holding vessel below before the Wort makes its way into the Copper. The Copper, Boils the Wort and Hops are added. This sterilises the wort and the boiling allows the Hop resins to be activated and depending on when there added can add Flavour through to Aroma. Sugar can also be added here if required. The Wort cycles in the vessel as it boils, this also helps with unwanted aromas to be pushed out through chimney.

 

Once the boil is finished, the Wort drops through to the hop back, which is a large vessel made of gun metal again copper lined with a mesh floor. This has smaller holes and drains through the floor to filter out the Spent Hops and any left over grains. the wort is then Pumped up to the top of the building and dropped into shallow cooling tanks where they are air cooled in the winter, or the wort runs through Paraflow units to cool the wort to a temperature where it  will not kill the Yeast to be added in Fermentation.

 

The Wort then drops to the fermentation department, which uses Yorkshire Rounds or a Burton Union Set, here Yeast feeds on the Fermentable sugars produced earlier in the process, producing heat, Co2 and most importantly Alcohol. yeast is recovered and once the Specific Gravity is achieved, it can now be called beer. It then drops to cold storage where beer matures and conditions where residual yeast mops up any unwanted aromas and can produce carbonation. The Beer is then ready for Packaging, the brewery here will have a Cask Dept and Bottling Dept, which will be built later. 

 

Anyway now onto the Modeling, The roller mills are card construction, The Mash Vessels are produces from American Pickle Vats, which are essentially the same construction as Mash Tuns. The Steels Masher is Machined Copper Bar, the Under back is a card and Paper Vessel, and the Coppers themselves are constructed of machined various diameter bars, which are fixed together with Glue. The Hope back is constructed of paper and card. all Paper and card (mount board) Vessels as well as the mills were drawn up and cut on the Cricut, this allowed several layers of paper, to be cut the same and layered. the Pumps are 3d Printed, The Office contains 3d printed furniture and figures used accross the model are a combination of finescale figures or Model U Figures. 

 

Thanks for reading. 

 

Joe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 9, 2022 by Woebegone-by-sea

[Guest]

Joe I just congratulate you on your modelling skills. The brewery plant look great.

[Woebegone-by-sea]

23 hours ago, Kevin Johnson said:

Joe I just congratulate you on your modelling skills. The brewery plant look great.

Thankyou Kevin, a lot of trial, error and practice, I can assure you. 

[The Cable Guy]

Brilliant modelling and explanation of the brewing process. I especially like your model of the Union Set

[Woebegone-by-sea]

The Interior of the Brewhouse was constructed separately so each floor and could be removed and slotted back in. The windows were then added, these are produced from matt white vinyl which was cut on the cricut machine and then placed on clear acetate. Finally I wired up all the 3V L.E.D lighting.

 

Once the Brewhouse was Complete, I was able to begin work on the packaging operation, the brewery will have a cask line and a bottling line. The Cask line is below the Fermenting room and I have constructed the conveyors from mountboard and plastic strip, with connected platforms for inspection and dry hopping, along with rotation tables to allow the casks to alter direction. Once complete I added a Racker (cask filling machine) complete with its Jack Back (header tank). The cask is loaded onto the conveyor and runs round to the first station where its inspected after cleaning outside, then it moves round to the Racker. Where the Racker man fills the cask by placing one of the three filling heads into a cask and opening the valve, once filled, hops are added if necessary, then a bung hammered in to seal it. Finally it moves down the ramp on the end of the line to be rolled out the building and either loaded or transferred to the cellar under the dock.

 

Next I moved onto the boiler room. I ordered 3 3D printed boiler loads which I set into brickwork, and detailed with pipes, safety valves, pressure and level gauges and grates. Once painted I then drilled the the two fire tubes out on the first boiler and fitted some fire effect L.E.D's. Lastly coal and a Model U Figure is placed in the boiler house. 

 

Thanks for Reading.

Joe

 

 

 

 

Edited April 9, 2022 by Woebegone-by-sea

[Woebegone-by-sea]

 

Racking as It was in Real life.

Edited April 9, 2022 by Woebegone-by-sea

[Woebegone-by-sea]

Now onto completing the roof, quite appropriate at the moment as many roofs will probably need work after this storm! For the roof I used my standard go to product which is from York Modelmaking, who produce some fantastic building materials for the scratch builder. The Tiles are of paper and have a very handy self adhesive back. its just a case of lining up starting at the guttering which I added jus before using a ratio kit, working up each layer of tiles cutting each end as I go.

 

The flashing is matt grey self adhesive vinyl cut to shape and fitted around the walls vents and I decided to put this on the window ledges. The Vents are a wonderful 3D print from shapeways, which pretty much match the prototype. I then added the lintels which are cut out from paper.

 

On the prototype there is a sack hoist, and although not in the exact same position, I decided that I would add it, as it adds to the character of the model and for different operations on the layout. This is constructed of the same construction as the rest of the building, constructed of card with plastikard cladding, along with a tiled roof and flashing the sack hoist completes the building. The hoist offers an alternative to the newer elevators and conveyors which although un seen travel accross the basement and up the center of the building, allowing the use of Grain Hopper wagons. 

 

Thanks for reading. 

 

Joe

 

 

 

 

Edited April 9, 2022 by Woebegone-by-sea

[Guest]

The model work you have put into producing this building is pure brilliance. 

[The Bandit]

Outstanding work!

[Andrew D]

This looks utterly amazing, I’m in awe!

[Woebegone-by-sea]

Thankyou for your kind words and support. 

Edited February 20, 2022 by Woebegone-by-sea

[Woebegone-by-sea]

Hi All, I felt It was about time for an update, although there may seem limited progress, In the background I have started building the models surround and baseboard, I aim to show you this once complete.

 

In this Post I just wanted to update you on the signage. In the arches above the boiler house I felt it important to pay a bit of homage to two of burtons biggest brands and brewers that I have a close connection with, along with these two I decided to add Everard's Logo as a nod to the Breweries history as in real life, as eventually the brewery was taken over by Everard's. Having a Bottling facility allows a bigger variety of traffic in and out of the brewery, as well as the flexibility to display a variety of signage. The signage is all cut on card on the Cricut machine, and although it does cut well, I find the image is better reversed with high fidelity files. I.e. outer edge downwards. I cut several to ensure I was able to pick the best out. I then made up some square plastruct angle iron type frames, to allow the signage to be held away from the building. Glued together with plastic magic, then painted with black spray paint and weathered to indicate some light rust with weathering powders. I then attached to signs/ logos and again weathered to give it a more realistic appearance finally all sealed in with Matt Lacquer. The Trent Brewery signage was completed in the same fashion only this time using slaters Styrene letters. 

 

The Brewery building is now complete with signage and the later addition of a sack hoist. now I move onto the task of the baseboard and then further Buildings. 

 

Cheers For Now

Joe

Edited April 12, 2022 by Woebegone-by-sea

[The Bandit]

A beautiful model. ‘Respect’ as the young people say.

[Woebegone-by-sea]

Quite a bit of work since I last posted, I have been laying the track, I have also been building a bottling hall and line, as well as work on the dock area with its storage cellars. I laid the track using Code 75/ Code 75 Bullhead, as of yet Peco don't make a short Y bullhead point so a code 75 had to do for this one, however I have managed to get the two different types of rails together, I have soldered at the joints, along with droppers then soldered onto copper tape below the layout. The track is all in and I have tested it all working well even with the tight curves. once complete I have cut card inserts to fit in the track and the points, I have also cut the stones to fit in the yard around the rails, these are raised up on 2mm foam. Once this was complete I began work on the bottling hall including the external walls and dock. I designed this in Cricut software and was able to cut all the component's out as described earlier, these were again layered to produce the recesses as per necessary. The Roof Trusses were purchased from York Model Makers, who really do have a brilliant range of laser cut building materials.  anyway on with the photos, next the Bottling Line which I hope to update you on later in the week.

 

Thanks for reading,  Joe 

[Woebegone-by-sea]

Inside the bottling hall I felt the need to make a bottling line in miniature as it's a cut away section of the model. Working as an engineer in a brewery I am quite familiar with this sort of equipment and how it would be set out. Between the 1940's and 1960's there were big progressions in automated packaging, and although this brewery is quite a small brewery with relatively unknown and local brands it does have the capacity to contract brew and package, and so I wanted to include a larger Bottling line, hence the adverts on the side of the boiler house which shows production for Bass, Double Diamond and Everard's, the later owned the full sized brew house for a large proportion of its life. Ind Coope & Allsopp had a similar production facility to this in Burton but considerably larger.

 

The first Image shows the bottling hall with the line all built up (unpainted). Looking from right to left, the roller conveyor not yet completed comes through the wall and down which would bring in the crates of returned bottles, these are loaded onto the curved conveyor which brings the bottles round to the bottle washer. This strips off the old labels and jets water up the inside of the bottles finally draining them, before placing the correct way up where they are dispatched onto the next conveyor. They then inspected and transfer left to the Copper coloured round object which is the filler. Here the Bottles are first pressurised with Co2 and then filled with beer as they move round the Bowl, which continually rotates. the bottles are then discharged to the crowner ( the white carousel at the front with the hopper on top) which places the cap/ crown onto the top of the bottle. The Bottles then move to the pasturiser ( the big box on the far left) this sterilises the beer by showering the bottles with water which in stages gradually heat the bottles up to 80degC to kill any bacteria in the product. 

 

The Line is built it out of a combination of mount board and thicker gloss card for the conveyors, the pasturiser and bottle washer. These are then sprayed and painted an ivory colour. The Filler and crowner are turned out of copper with the additions of a copper sheet guard made from pipe and a hopper turned from a stainless steel bolt. Lastly the building is completed with it's roof trusses as described in an earlier post and painted white.

 

I hope to complete the line shortly with the addition of the crate roller conveyors, crates and the labeling tables, which again I will need to turn on a lathe. Finally the addition of Buffer tanks, pipework and extraction. The Little details which hopefully will bring it all to life.

 

Included are some examples of Bottling Machinery from the 1950's copyrights are the image owners.

 

Thanks for reading 

Joe

 

 

Edited July 20, 2022 by Woebegone-by-sea
Additional content

[The Cable Guy]

The Bottling Hall is looking brilliant