Beer Forum

So! I was recently having a discussion with someone about brewing. The thing is, this person works on a ship, as I often do also. Which led us to a discussion about brewing on a ship... Now the big issue here, of course, is the motion of the ship in rough weather. After having a bit of a think, I reckon it may be doable if you were able to try and gauge it so that certain key parts take place in areas where you're less likely to have bad weather. So... am I right in thinking that periods of instability will only delay the process, or is it possible that movement at certain points could kill the beer? What are people's thoughts generally, and has anyone any ideas of how certain things might be overcome?

I realise it's a slightly mad and ridiculous idea, hence putting it out to you folks! Any musings are welcome... feel free to shoot me down, I'll recover eventually....

The brew dog guys brewed on a ship with Jim Koch. They had a system to account for the motion of the ocean,

If you can keep the liquid in the vessels, I don't see the problem. I have seen some pretty insane pitches that could present a problem, but I would think just let gravity work for you instead of against you. If you can counter ballast it to remain upright relative to gravity, no worries.

Ozwald wrote:If you can keep the liquid in the vessels, I don't see the problem. I have seen some pretty insane pitches that could present a problem, but I would think just let gravity work for you instead of against you. If you can counter ballast it to remain upright relative to gravity, no worries.

My main concern would be during the boiling process if the kettle volume was too high and liquid was jumping out of the kettle. Other than that, maybe try to brew in the middle of the ship and fill your carboy as high as you can (within reason) to limit the amount of sloshing that can happen during fermentation.

Boiling while the ship is in motion sounds dangerous as hell. I'm sure your sea legs are better than mine but sometimes I stumble in my garage during a long brew day! I'm not familiar with the brew dog guys' project with Jim but is the idea to do this on the deck or below? In any case, just frickin' go for it dude. Take pics and wear a pirate hat! Cheers.

Duff

Duff Man wrote:Boiling while the ship is in motion sounds dangerous as hell. I'm sure your sea legs are better than mine but sometimes I stumble in my garage during a long brew day! I'm not familiar with the brew dog guys' project with Jim but is the idea to do this on the deck or below? In any case, just frickin' go for it dude. Take pics and wear a pirate hat! Cheers.

Duff

they did it on deck and had a brew system that would rock with the waves so the kettles always stayed perfectly level no matter what the ship was doing..not a terribly difficult concept just need to hold it near the top with some bearings to let it rock around with the boat..kinda like a gyroscope..