120l Mash On Weekend

[MVZOOM]

Following in the footsteps of another club (sorry - can't recall!), a couple of blokes (Phrak /BenHobbs) and I decided to create a bespoke, single use mashtun and mash 6 batches of Golden Ale in a single mash.

We decided to go with the gravel mash tun, as it looked interesting and meant that we didn't need to build a large manifold. Parts used on the day were:

20kg of washed Bluestone gravel
120L Storage container
Swiss Viole above the gravel bed
2 x 80L Kettles
2 x 50L HLT's
Various lines / fittings / taps

Didn't use a pump, but used my custom brewstand (read: sideless comms rack w/ sliding shelf). Ingrediants included:

21Kg Pilsner
4Kg Ale
1.4kg Munich
Shed loads of hops - Amarillo and Cascade - I don't have the recipe on me, but it was around 1/2 a KG of Amarillo and 120g of Cascade.

We aimed for a concentrated boil to produce 6 x 17L wort containers, which would be watered down to give 23L @ 1058. We got close - I don't have the exact number on me, but we were down in efficiency by a couple of points at the end of the day.

Lessons Learned:

- We didn't pre-warm the tun properly (read: at all!), so our strike water wasn't hot enough and we had to run around like idiots to compensate. Ended up mashing at a lower temp than what we wanted to, so it'll be a little drier than what it should be

- A mash this big, and subsiquent sparges needs a LOT of HLT capacity and rigourous management of the HLT's - ie... re-filling etc.

- Swiss voile moves around a lot and is pretty useless.. we should have put a braid in, we had one ready to go but only on a 1/2" tap - ended up using a larger bore 3/4" tap and didn't use the braid

- Time... because of the HLT capacity, we needed 3 sparges. The whole day was nearly 11 hours (!!!!!) - although we had to build and assemble everything, it took a looooong time!

Anyway, photo's are at home, I'll upload them when possible and add them to the thread. Good day, nice and relaxing if a little long!

Cheers - Mike

 

[Effect]

yeah get some photos up - would really want to see that mash tun!

good work mate!

 

[Stuster]

Following in the footsteps of another club (sorry - can't recall!)

Hmmm. :icon_cheers:

Pumpy's mash tun plan lives. At least this once. And perhaps never again. :lol:

Sounds like fun and all those hops must have smelled great. Although the 11 hours bit doesn't sound so good. What are you going to ferment your bit with?

 

[Phrak]

It was a feckin' exhausting day! We started at 10am and didn't leave until ~10pm. But enjoyable all the same :icon_chickcheers:

There was a few firsts for all of us on the day:
First time using gravel mash-tun (we built the tun that morning!)
First mash >10Kg of grain
First time using our new 80L kettles (NFI about what their boil-off rates would be!)
First brew day >2 batches (for me at least)

Here's the recipe we used, my Golden Ale vIII scaled up 6x.

Recipe designed to 132L (66L in each kettle), cooked with a concentrated boil to a final volume of 110L (55L each kettle) for 6x17L cubes.

BeerSmith Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com

Recipe: Golden Ale III @ 132L (Sextruple batch)

Brewer: Tim, Mike, Ben

Asst Brewer: 

Style: American Pale Ale

TYPE: All Grain





Recipe Specifications

--------------------------

Batch Size: 132.00 L	  

Boil Size: 172.67 L

Estimated OG: 1.049 SG

Estimated Color: 7.7 EBC

Estimated IBU: 35.3 IBU

Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %

Boil Time: 90 Minutes



Ingredients:

------------

Amount		Item										  Type		% or IBU  

24000.00 gm	Pilsner, Malt Craft Export (Joe White) (3.2 EBGrain	   81.36 %   

4000.00 gm	 Pale Malt, Traditional Ale (Joe White) (5.9 EBGrain	   13.56 %   

1500.00 gm	 Munich, Light (Joe White) (17.7 EBC)		  Grain	   5.08 %	

120.00 gm	  Cascade 06 [5.20 %]  (60 min)				 Hops		12.1 IBU  

120.00 gm	  Amarillo Gold 05 [8.40 %]  (15 min)		   Hops		9.7 IBU   

120.00 gm	  Amarillo Gold 06 [8.90 %]  (10 min)		   Hops		7.5 IBU   

180.00 gm	  Amarillo Gold 05 [8.40 %]  (5 min)			Hops		5.9 IBU   

120.00 gm	  Amarillo Gold 05 [8.40 %]  (5 min) (Aroma Hop-Hops		 -		

3 items		Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min)			  Misc				  

6 Pkgs		 SafAle US-56 (DCL Yeast #US-56)			   Yeast-Ale			 



Total Grain Weight: 29500.00 gm

Total Hop Weight: 660.00 gm



Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light-Medium Body, Batch Sparge



----------------------------

Single Infusion, Light-Medium Body, Batch Sparge

Step Time	 Name			   Description						 Step Temp	 

90 min		Mash In			Add 74L of water at 71.6 C  65.0 C

I wanna see some pics of our handy-work/****-ups! ;-) :lol:

:beer:
Tim

 

[MVZOOM]

Ok - photos!


Plotting about getting it all together:


....this is going to be painful.. lots of posts!

 

[MVZOOM]

Inside of the mash tun



Mashtun tap and copper shank:

 

[MVZOOM]

My advanced grain weight management system....

 

[MVZOOM]

Crikey, that's a lot of grain.....



Now to crush it. About 1kg every 40 seconds through my Marga. Had to stop and let the rollers cool down every 10kg or so.



The brew rig. OH&S officers, turn away now please.

 

[MVZOOM]

Heating water on the #2 HLT



More brewstand action:



Yet more. Ben was doing the hard yards up the ladder..

 

[MVZOOM]

Dough in:



First murky runnings:



Stroke of genius - mobile boiler system at the correct height. Look Mum, no pumps!

 

[MVZOOM]

Two big burners, going hard:



130L or so of wort, hop additions of 1/2 Kg:



......and after draining, trub:

 

[buttersd70]

Now to crush it. About 1kg every 40 seconds through my Marga. Had to stop and let the rollers cool down every 10kg or so.

Classic!!!!!!! Pure gold!

 

[MVZOOM]

...... and finished.



What a day.

Cheers - Mike

 

[Tony]

Well done guys.......... a massive effort!

Only one part of this sounds painfull and that would be running over 25 kg of grain through a marga mill.

Even i wouldnt consider that pain of doing that!

cheers

 

[MVZOOM]

Tony - it really wasn't that bad. I think my Marga is a 'Friday' job - it is different from most and crushes fast. A normal 5kg lot takes less than 5 mins.

Holding a drill for 20 odd minutes wasn't the best though. Or being Ben, who very patiently held his hand in front of the mill as the grains spat out. For ages.

Cheers - Mike

 

[Fents]

no beers in anyones hands in any of those photos - dissapointed guys.

 

[MVZOOM]

no beers in anyones hands in any of those photos - dissapointed guys.

On the contrary.... we piled our way though a number of beverages - however 11 hours is a long time, especially with hop additions at the end. You don't want to be going that long and have to think! I believe we cracked the first Hoegaarden at around 11.30am...!

 

[oldbugman]

On the contrary.... we piled our way though a number of beverages - however 11 hours is a long time, especially with hop additions at the end. You don't want to be going that long and have to think! I believe we cracked the first Hoegaarden at around 11.30am...!

hah 11:30am it would have been 2:30pm in new zealand... you were 2.5 hours late, especially a hoegaarden. They go down well at 9am.

 

[Pumpy]

Good work MVZOOM.

Nothing wrong with the 'Gravel method mashers' coming out of the closet ,

always good to have the pics worth a thousand words .

pumpy

 

[Fourstar]

way to drag up a 2 year old thread pumpy! :lol: