Ansells Brewery. Brewing School visits 1968 to 1969
Ansells Brewery Ltd, Aston Cross, Birmingham
Visit by Brewing School students – October 1968
Bulk malt delivery is from ABM, Peach and William Jones this latter being an Ansells subsidiary. The malt system is in two linked parts, one serving the new side (about 10 years old and the object of our visit) and the other for the old side. There are two inlet points but one is now redundant. On the new side, malt is taken and held in an intake bin until it is weighed and conveyed to the three malt silos. Malt is blended from the silos by means of a mechanical metering device, screened to a malt hopper and milled. The screen is conventional and the four roller mill from Porteus feeds the grist cases. On the old side the process is as above but seven varying sizes of malt silo are used. Malt is blended and conveyed as before. The old side system feeds the old side mash tuns although the systems are interlinked. The conveyors are of the belt and roller type fitted with a cyclone dust extractor. Chocolate malt is added from sack for darker beers into the malt flow in line to the mill.
Liquor
Water from one of five wells feeds the brewery top tanks. The water is automatically treated with calcium chloride to 1100 microohms conductivity. The water is heated to 158 -170°F in hot liquor tanks by steam injection. This liquor is used for mashing Mild, Nut Brown Ale and King Pin Mild. The liquor for bitter, special and pale ale has an extra addition of sodium sulphate (from bags) into the HLT to a conductivity of 1350 microohms
Mashing
There are four mash tuns, two semi-automatic ones are in use.The mash turns are used every four hours on an alternative basis. Ansells works in brews, one brew is around 80 barrels. The largest mashes are 63 quarters of pale malt for six brews of bitter and special; 60 quarters ordinary mild ale malt for seven and a half brews of MA including 700 pounds of black malt; 58 quarters yields 9 brews of NBA and Spotlight in (pale ale) with 120 pounds of black.
Black malt is the only adjunct used in the mash tun. Smaller mashes are employed on many occasions depending on demand for example 4BB or 6NBA. The mashing liquor rate is 2.2 barrels per quarter and the temperature is 150oF for all brews. One mash tun has a mash mixing chamber with grist passing through a water jet, the other has a mechanical screw mixer. Both are emptied mechanically into a Ponndorf system.
The mash procedure is stand for one hour, underlet with 170oF liquor, stand for a further one hour before commencing run off and sparging. The runoff is automatic into under-backs. About 180 barrels is preheated to 185oF with 20 psi steam injection and pumped to the first copper for boiling. The remaining 300 barrels is run to the second copper
Coppers
There are six coppers but only two are used for wort boiling, two are redundant, one is used for boiling caustic for in-place cleaning and the other used for Chlorox dissolving. Copper No 1 holds 180 barrels and No 2 holds 310 barrels.
The following table shows the boiling and hop/sugar additions
There is one hopback of 300 barrels capacity.
The collecting gravities are as follows bitters 1041¾, MA 1036¾, KPM 1034¾, PA 1034¾ and NBA 1032¾.
There are four wort receivers and four paraflows; any two wort receivers used with any two paraflows. The wort is called to 60°F and spends six and a half hours in collecting vessel before dropping. The nine CVs vary in size from 80 to 700 barrels
Yeast
Yeast is added as a slurry to collecting vessel. 0.6 pounds of pressed per barrel depending on gravity. Yeast is in the ratio of pressed to water of one to three by weight.
Bitters are skimmed after 96 hours, MA after 72 and Nut Brown after 60. The heads are removed by suction pump to Pfaudler receivers. It is pressed on the Johnson and Carlson Fford press each yielding 1400 pounds of yeast. 20% is kept and slurried in a 550 barrel yeast tank. It is chilled to 35°F and pumped to a cold tank near the paraflows and stored at 40°F. It may remain in the tank for four days but two to three is more usual.
BB will ferment to 1014 PG with an attenuation limit of 1010 while MA ferments to 1012 degrees with an attenuation limit of 1009.
36 hours before dropping to racking tank, cane sugar at 1149o is added at the rate of half a gallon per barrel for MA and other dark beers, ¼ gallon per barrel for BB and none for Pale Ale. Isomerised top extract at 8,000 ppm is added at 0.1 pints per barrel. M594 caramel at 1149o is added to darker beers as required. Beer is dropped to six racking tanks. Two tanks are 800 barrel capacity, the others vary in size and are older.
Cask washing - rinses, steam, hot water, cold water rinse.
Beer is racked into cask, dry hopped at 1 ounce per barrel and stored for approximately two days and is machine fined immediately before dispatch.