About Ferrell Brewing Co
Driven by a passion for great tasting session beers from around the world. Ferrell Brewing Co bring great, full flavour session beers that you will always want to come back to time and again.
We don’t brew lots of weird and wonderful beers and you certainly won’t find anything with Birds Custard Powder in!
Here at Ferrell Brewing Co you will enjoy great tasting beers influenced by our love of great european beers from Belgium and Germany. We love the flavours of Kolsch’s, Belgian Blonde’s, Tripel’s and Dunkel’s. You will also find plenty of American and New World hop-forward inspired beers with bright, fresh tastes and aromas, alongside our take on more traditional Golden Ale’s, Stout’s and Porter’s.
From Steve’s day job working with bespoke electronics and programming, we have worked together to conspire to build a fully computer controlled all-grain brewing plant in Dave’s garage! All areas of the brew process are monitored and controlled with the touch of a button, from boil and ‘mash’ temperatures measured to .5 degrees, to real time fermentation tracking. This control allows us to really dial in our recipes and produce great beers again and again.
Because we built our plant ourselves it does mean we are constantly tweaking and hacking things to improve the process.
Over the last 2 years we have been brewing and refining our brew days, always learning as we go. Some parts of the process are very high tech, with remote gravity readings of the fermenting beer being updated over wifi, and some are very low tech like the use of a plaster mixer in a cordless drill to aid in the whirlpooling of the beer at the end of the brew process. We love the marriage of the very high tech and very low tech.
Dave Manton
What was the first album you bought?
Pocket Full of Kryptonite, Spin Doctors or Stoosh, Skunk Anansie – I can’t remember.
What movie title best describes your life?
Falling Down (I’ve broken a lot of bones)
What’s your dream car?
Mercedes 190 EVO1 (not 2)
What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home?
The Gambia on my honeymoon
What city would you most like to live in?
Edinburgh
What one thing do you really want but can’t afford yet?
A full sized brewery and tap room
Your favourite FBC beer and why?
Ceasars Boom – I love the Belgian style
What’s your perfect beer drinking scenario?
Hot sunny day in my garden with a family and friends drinking my beer and cooking pizza’s in my diy pizza oven. Perfection
Your favourite beer and food combo?
Manaro IPA and homemade pizza
Your favourite beer of all time ever and why?
Something like Kasteel Bruin Donker – it’s something like 11% and blows your head off,but the flavour is unbelievable. Or alternatively Buenos Ayres Dark Larger – excellent beer.
Simon Weightman
What was the first album you bought?
Eminem The Marshall Mather LP
What movie title best describes your life?
The Hangover at the minute
What’s your dream car?
BMW e30 M
What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home?
Mauritius
What city would you most like to live in?
LA
What one thing do you really want but can’t afford yet?
A triple garage
Your favourite FBC beer and why?
DIPA because of its awesome hoppy flavour profile
What’s your perfect beer drinking scenario?
Cold beer and sunshine
Your favourite beer and food combo?
Buffalo wings and a new IPA
Your favourite beer of all time ever and why?
Beavertown Neck Oil for its drinkability
Brewdog Punk IPA for its hoppy flavour
Stephen Holmes
What was the first album you bought?
Let them Eat Bingo – Beats International
What movie title best describes your life?
Fear and loathing in Las Vegas
What’s your dream car
Probably a Singer 911
What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home?
Beijing in China, during the Paralympics
What city would you most like to live in?
San Diago – California
What one thing do you really want but can’t afford yet?
A pension!
Your favourite FBC beer and why?
Monaro Mango IPA served as a slushy
What’s your perfect beer drinking scenario?
Friends and a BBQ or Taco’s
Your favourite beer and food combo?
A good session IPA and homemade Pizza
Your favourite beer of all time ever and why?
Probably Sierra Nevada Pale, as it made me realise not all american beers was Budweiser and the hoppyness was amazing.
SIBA Beer X 2020
March 12, 2020
With plans to expand this year it was time to visit SIBA Beer X . Beer X is the largest exhibition for independent brewers in the UK. It gave us a chance to catch up with other brewers, suppliers, and manufactures. Of course we got to look at loads and loads of shinny new equipment 🙂
Read moreGlycol Chiller
February 1, 2020
Having seen an advert locally for a flash cooler for spares and repair Steve jumped at the chance to have a tinker. After a 5 minute inspection it was clear that the thermostat on the unit had stopped working. Rather than replacing with a standard part Steve fitted a STC-1000 temperature controller. This will allow us to run the cooler with glycol in and thus run the cooling in the fermentors below zero which will really help with cold crashing the beer.
Read moreFirst Casks Arrive
January 1, 2020
Having seen some small 4.5 gallon pins for sale on the SIBA website we took the plunge and bought a pair to run some cask experiments.
Read moreFermentation Control pt2
August 30, 2019
Well the cool box of water did not work to keep the fermentation temperatures in check so a new plan was needed. Using a pub flash cooler to pump cool water around the fermentation cooling coil seemed to be the best plan. After waiting on Ebay and gumtree we finally found a unit at the right price. After a 30 minute change to the fermentation control box and we where up and running with far superior cooling power even for the hottest of days. We could even cold crash the beer down to 2 degrees.
Read moreFermenation Control
August 3, 2019
To control the temperature of the fermentors we purchased we built a system using silicone heat pads to provide low steady heat and a coiling coil from BrewBuilder combined with a cool box full of water and ice packs. This system again could be monitored and controlled across the internet allowing us precise control.
Read more2x 110l Fermentation Tanks
June 27, 2019
Looking to increase our fermentation capacity we found a pair of 110 litre variable volume fermentation tanks from German manufacture Speidel. These tanks where ideal for us as they allowed us to vary the amount we where fermenting on each brew run. They would of course need a little bit of Ferrell Brewing magic so we can control fermentation temperatures.
Read moreMalt Mill
March 14, 2019
As another measure to reduce the costs of purchasing crushed grains in small amounts we found a malt mill on ebay. With a bit of juggling a friend of mine in Manchester collected it and brought it up the next time he visited home. We could now crush our own grain and control another step of the process.
Read more“I am the God of Hell fire and I bring you fire!”
February 1, 2019
As we where looking to increase our brew size we thought that our 2.8kw elements might struggle to heat and boil water quick enough. A continued scouring of Ebay and Gumtree turned up 2 propane burners at a great price. These really help us to speed the brewing process helping us get to strike temperature as well as getting the wort from the mash tun up to boil.
Read moreLarger Brew Fridge
November 24, 2018
With increased brew sizes we needed to be able to ferment at least 50 litres at a time. To give us the control we needed we build a second brew fridge. As well as the fridge control there is also a heater for when it is cold. This allows us to maintain perfect fermentation temperature as well as being able to ‘cold crash’ the beer at the end of fermentation to drop the yeast out of the beer.
Read moreStir Plate
October 26, 2018
Looking to improve the quality of our beers as well as increasing our batch sizes where where need more yeast. To deal with this problem I built a stir plate. Using a PC fan some magnets out of and old harddrive an a £2 motor controller I build a great stir plate. Stir plates allow you to start with a small amount of yeast an grow to the amount needed.
Read morePractise, practise,practise
August 21, 2018
Having dialled in the brew setup and got over a few early hickups it was time to keep practising. Every time we brew we learn something new or fine tune a process. Some notable brews brewed over the summer where a German Kolsch and a British Strong Ale.
Read moreKeg additions
June 1, 2018
Having seen a good offer on some corny kegs we invested in a draft setup to allow us to serve draft beer. This allows for a much quicker turn round of beer and allows a controlled amount of carbonation that is trickier to achieve with bottle condition. The ‘downside’ to this is having 36 pints of cold beer on draft in the office!
Read moreEscape to Alcatraz
May 27, 2018
Having patiently waited 3 weeks for our first beer to ferment, condition and carbonate it was time to try it….. What a lovely beer a real winner 🙂
Read moreFirst Brew
April 24, 2018
We then set about brewing our first beer and raided the Brewdog recipe book to make a Dead Pony clone, a good session able hoppy beer we both loved drinking. Brew day was far from smooth, with all manner or problems from blocked pumps, to overheating an extension cable – not the best start! But at the end of the day we had 50 litres of ‘wort’ to ferment.
Read moreBuild & test vessels
April 1, 2018
Having order a 3x 100 litre stainless steel vessels system from Bridge Water Brewing it was time to build and test it. The vessels came with holes cut for thermometer and ball valve but we had to add cutouts for the digital temp probe, heating elements and recirculation port. All fittings where fitted used liquid PTFE to seal everything nice and type. The where then individually leak tested.
Read moreBuild & Test control panel
March 1, 2018
March was spent testing and building the brewery control panel. The panel runs CraftBeerPi and this handle all the electrics. This gives us manual or automatic control of the 2 heating elements (hot liquor tank and boil kettle), as well as 2 electric pumps. We have programmed the control panel logic to allow us to maintain the temperature of the mash tun automatically using a counter flow heat exchanger.
Read moreTime to All grain
February 1, 2018
It was around this time that Dave from work had started brewing homebrew kits. It is a great hobby and with the new range of kits it allowed us to produce a good range of beers. After around 6 months of brewing we decided to hatch a plan to build a system for all grain brewing. We started with the idea of a 50 litre kit but this so escalated!
Read moreBrew Fridge
December 20, 2017
At my work I was using single board computers more and more and while searching the internet for some example code for industrial control using a Raspberry Pi I came across CraftBeerPi, an open source brew control software. Feeling inspired I realised I could use the skills I had developed through my work, to build a web controlled brew fridge. This allowed me to accurately and easily control the fermentation temperature of the beer I was brewing. I carried on brewing kits as they were quick and easy, but produced great results.
Read more