All grain 3V electric system

[Online Brewing Supplies]

Free on Saturday morning Nev? You can use my HLT or Kettle as a tester as I need a 2400w element in each at some point.

really need to test the 3.6 Kw element fitting. Got 15 Amp ?
Nev

 

[keifer33]

Nah don't currently.

 

[TheWiggman]

Did another brew today taking in the experience from the last brew and feedback from others. Was a wiessbier from my trusty Home Brew Beer book by Greg Hughes.

Problems with 'stuck mash' on mash-in: turned off pump and temp control during and about 5 mins after adding grain. Started up pump, no dramas at all.
High OG: added some extra volume to the recipe and hit OG easily with calculated volume. Before boil and after SG was as per recipe from BeerSmith. Boil volume was higher than expected without exceeding 1.015 during sparge.
Sparging: not good. 19l isn't enough for a wheat beer (14.5l of strike water, 36l for pre boil) and required me to stop halfway during sparge, refill the HLT and heat, then resume. This is something I can't get away from and will simply have to deal with until I buy a new pot.

Bought a refractometer and hopsock to address SG issues and pump blockages. Both problems solved. Would never want to do all grain again without a refractometer, and the hopsock made my previous problems laughable. I used the RIMS Cornelius as a cooler and it did a pretty awesome job.

Brown pump did get stuck just prior to sparging, wouldn't pump at all even though voltage measurements were implying it was drawing power. It turned out the stickiness of the mash prevented it from turning and it needed a physical push after opening it up to make things happen. I'm hoping this won't be an ongoing issue.

Tomorrow I'm doing a Coopers Sparkling Ale clone from AndrewQld using a Coopers yeast starter. Looking forward to it.

 

[TheWiggman]

My first saga with the new system.
Did mash as per instructions, in about 30 mins of sacc rest and the pump stopped. I didn't realise this because I was in the house doing other things. Temp of mash dropped to 60 by I got it going again. I tried about 3 times to get it going and had to choke the discharge slightly to keep the pump RPM up (it could be heard struggling). It wasn't enough flow to bring the temp back up and keep it there without making the HLT too hot, so I bit the bullet and sparged using a pot pouring it on top of the mash. Not ideal, but worked. I sparged and at 28l was on 1.033 in boiler - 1.040 desired. Runoff was still around 1.020, so I can only think the mash was no good. It got so low because with my frustrations with the pump I didn't check the SG and kept sparging between repair attempts.

I added an extra 10 mins to boil to increase the SG a bit. Added hops at 60 min mark.

While the boil was underway I investigated the pump. In the process of doing so I assumed the problem may have been with a blocked HEx coil so I threw some (~30ml) bleach into the HLT and let it recirc (bottom of HLT > pump > HEx > back into HLT top). I got it running, albeit at lower flow, so decided to leave it primed and run the HEx to cool down the wort. Once the boil was over, I pointed the outlet to the garden, waited until beer-coloured liquid came through, and coupled it back to the boiler.

I had forgotten I'd added the bleach.

My first taste test was pre-fermenter, and it had a really strange tang that lingered in the mouth. This was when I realised I hadn't flushed the copper with water after rinsing it with bleach. I tasted the bleached water in the HLT and to be honest it didn't have the same strange tang. But it is horrible nonetheless and I'm not sure if it's due to the flawed mash or because of the bleach contamination. After a lot of swearing and urge to launch the pump through the damned gates of Hell, which I'm hoping was over the neighbour's fence, I figured I might as well let it ferment and see if it's that bad once FG is hit.

Was it the low mash temps and short mash? Was it the bleach? Was it all the hops floating around that made it through the hop sock? In any case, I take back everything I said about these brown pumps and no longer recommend them for pumping sticky stuff. Next payday I think get one of these: http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=4270. As well as more ingredients for the Coopers Sparkling Ale clone dare I say.

 

[MastersBrewery]

sorry to hear your day went to crap, I have a similar pump to the one you linked (15 or so brews old), I use it for all my hot transfers, you will find it has a far greater flow, so remember to throttle it when recircing, I believe in the HERMS thread they recomend 4-6LPM
Good luck, and remember your just geting it dialed in ....... batch 50 will be just another brew day

 

[TheWiggman]

True MastersBrewery, I do like everything working but reality kicks me in the face every now and then. Serves me for not researching hard enough I suppose.

I sampled the fermenting Sparkling Ale clone and I can tell you that the bleach did not affect the brew at all. You couldn't taste it over the completely overpowering flavour of BURNT PLASTIC. Evidently the pump went down with the ship and must have melted a seal to cause the original failure. My hands stink like plastic after washing it out and everything - even the airlock, which did not touch the liquid - stinks of it. The aftertaste lingers for about 20 mins. I'm back to trusting bleach again and hoping it'll cure the fermenter, or it may be forever tainted.
I tipped it out on the lawn and the dog decided to have a taste. He wandered off making a horrific choking noise, which was well earnt.

The good folk at Craft Brewer honoured warranty on the pump. Cheers. When trying to remove the barbs both the suction and discharge snapped off, ruining the pump. Not only that but I spent an hour trying to take the thread out and simply can't on one of the barbs.

The pump kicks me in the nuts once more.

I've ordered their green pump (much to my wife's displeasure) which has received reasonable ratings here. Next weekend I'll be back into it because I'm starting to run the keg low.

 

[TheWiggman]

I thought it was supposed to get better the more you brew...

Yesterday I did a 150 lashes clone for a mate. Right off the bat in the morning, I turned on the system to warm it up and the circuit breaker tripped. After testing on a different circuit I eventually narrowed it down to the Keg King 2200 W element in the boiler. I was ropable.
I called my mate up no his way around and told him to drop in to get a $14 kettle. I dismantled it (after burring a screw head and drilling it out) only to find it wouldn't fit in the hole. After about an hour of frigging around we thought it worked because the element light came on. Success! Wrong! I noticed when I plugged it in the power was off - but the light was on. Baffled, I looked at my controller and noticed a very melty solid state coupling. Luckily I had another one in my MAME cabinet rated at 40A, so I scavenged this.

No change. No power, light on. I noticed that I had wired my A and N around the wrong way on the outlet plugs so corrected this, but it still didn't make sense. Did this, no change. I pulled the element out and wired it on the table, turned it on and it heated up straight away. I reasoned that the silicone washer was too thick because the hole was a different size to the kettle, so trimmed this down. Wound up the screws tightly and would you believe it - SUCCESS.
I for the life of me still can't work it out the light business, but I think it may have been some residual current from the SSR. Whatever, it goes.

Brew day was overall steady with the new pump. Some stuck mash issues because of a very fine grind from the local brewer, but no biggie. We tasted throughout the day and the plastic taste I mentioned above was absent.
Boil was a winner. Gravities and volumes checked out, so even though it was a late finish I was comfortable. My mate took off for dinner so I left the boiled wort in the keg and came back today to transfer it.

Had a taste - BURNT PLASTIC. It was horrible, the same as before. Oh, how I cursed. I was midway through the mash of my brew today when this happened, so I didn't want to ruin 3 brews. I needed to find out what it was. At this stage, I was thinking it was residual plastic in the hop sock (I boiled it 3 times, sterilised twice and washed it in the dishwasher though so I was struggling to believe it) but wasn't convinced.

I thought for a while. I boiled about 10l of water in the boiler to rule it out. Once done, I tipped some out and tasted it later. BURNT PLASTIC. I thought for ages and then realised it must have been the sealant I used on the sight glass - which was rated for boiling temps mind you. I ripped a bit off it and tasted it, and it was 100% the problem. My wife was of course out, I was looking after the kids and I had reached mash-out, so I sparged into two fermenters.

I'm going out to taste my sealing attempt again and then boil. Hang around for more hilarity and bad luck, or general comedic entertainment.

 

[TheWiggman]

I'm going out to taste my sealing attempt again and then boil. Hang around for more hilarity and bad luck, or general comedic entertainment.

After boiling for 10 mins, no detectable plastic taste. Phew.

Finished boiling my weissbier and tasted it - there seems to be some presence of the 'tartness' of the plastic but it doesn't linger at all and it's possible it's all in my head. I'm boiling 40l of bleached water now to try and kill everything one last time. If this doesn't work, I may kill myself.
Also going to try to get warranty on the sight glass that never sealed and my Keg King element. There aren't that many parts left that can fail. In time I'm going to ditch my Cornelius HLT in exchange for a more practical 38l pot, same as my other one. Will also buy a 2400 W element like the one I got from Gryphon because that so far seems to be a much higher quality item.

 

[TheWiggman]

Well brew #4 down the drain. About 10min into the boil there was a faint detectable plastic taste. Not bad, but present. I tipped the hops out of the hop bag in case the bag was the problem.
After 20min, the familiar taste was back. I had a bloke there to taste as well and he agreed, it was rubbishy plastic.

I'm over it. I can't brew beer with this boiler. It's all stainless except for the silicone washers and brass plug. I soaked the bottom 3rd of it in a Star San solution overnight and then cleaned with PBW with thorough rinse the next day. I'm all out of ideas except for replacing everything.

 

[MastersBrewery]

I thought you had got the taste during the mash last time, before it got to the kettle. With the LBP imploding on a previous brew, I would be exploring the possibility of some part of the pump lodging in the HX coil. Reread the thread to again familiarize myself with your setup and I can't see anything that should be doing this. I would be doing separate hot runs on each piece of equipment with water, taste test each to get closer to isolating the cause, bet is it's something small. Teething problems grrr

 

[TheWiggman]

No, I assumed I got it from the mash last time. I never actually tasted it. I have a feeling the pump wasn't at fault at all though it did start seiznig. Today I took the element off and found this inside it -



It was hard and crusty and was the liquid sealant I used in place of plumbers tape: http://www.bunnings.com.au/boston-50ml-liquid-sealant_p4750075
The tape is rated to 135°C though and tasting the plastic there was nothing notably nasty about it. In any case, I cleaned it with a strong mixture of PBW for 40 mins then wire brushed it off. I then soaked the entire keg with Star San after putting it all back together after rinsing it with PBW first. Then a big rinse and it was all good to go.
For the entire mash I taste the liquor and there is not a hint of plastic or off flavours in it - it tastes awesome and smells great as you would expect. Then, after boiling for about 10 mins, the flavour is present and gets stronger the more it boils.

I'm at wit's end. I did another brew this afternoon after my big cleaning efforts. I heated sparge water in the kettle to 78°C and it tasted clean. I was going to split the pre-boil and boil one half on the stove but while putting the kids in bed, I left a tap open on something and lost about half my beer. Seeing as I only have about 20l I thought stuff it, I may as well use the kettle again. And I'm pretty sure the plastic taste is back 30 mins into the boil. There is literally nothing more I can do. I took a run off from what was left from the sparge so I'm going to boil that on the stove to see if it tastes funny. If so, I know the mash and HEx are fine. If not, I think I might have to throw everything in the bin. I'm getting to that point.

 

[MastersBrewery]

Yeah I can see how frustrating it's getting, let us know how you go with the boil of runnings on the stove

ED: further thought, you did take the inner plastic tube out of the ss mesh in the mash tun right?

 

[TheWiggman]

I boiled the runnings for 30 mins and tasted, 100% fine. Tasted good actually. The problem seems to be something in the kettle that comes out when boiled. What I don't get is why water isn't affected. Maybe it's the acidity of the wort?
The solution: use this as a HLT and get a pot and new element for the boiler. I'm going to park the brew system for a while because I've thrown far too much cash at it (and no beer to show for it) and need to save for the new gear.

Argh!

Oh yeah - braid has no inner

 

[lael]

Can you post some pics of your system? How is the braid connected to an outlet? Does it have any rubber orings or something left in there?

Bummer situation. At least it seems narrowed down. What valves etc are you using?

 

[real_beer]

Have your compression fittings got metal or nylon olives?

 

[TheWiggman]

Have your compression fittings got metal or nylon olives?

Stainless. The compression fitting in the boiler is absent.

 

[TheWiggman]

Can you post some pics of your system? How is the braid connected to an outlet? Does it have any rubber orings or something left in there?

Bummer situation. At least it seems narrowed down. What valves etc are you using?

I have a few pics ealier in the thread and in my gallery. Only materials used are stainless and silicone. The braid is connected by sliding it inside some silicone hose and the hose goes over the barb. In the mash tun i didn't use any sealant on the threads to minimise the different stuff used and allow it to be pulled apart easily if required. There's nothing rubber anywhere to speak of.

Valves are stainless, Maxiflow and a higher-quality type that came as part of a bulkhead kit from iBrew. As per above though, the problem seems to be isolated to the kettle.

 

[real_beer]

There's a possibility it could be the plastic in your sight glass, read the reply in this electric kettle query https://getsatisfaction.com/breville/topics/plastic_smell_taste_from_new_kettle

 

[TheWiggman]

There's a possibility it could be the plastic in your sight glass, read the reply in this electric kettle query https://getsatisfaction.com/breville/topics/plastic_smell_taste_from_new_kettle

True. I'm confident the original problem was caused by an ingress of melted sealant I used on the site glass as it never sealed (read post #27). The sight glass was however made of glass, stainless, had silicone seals and the rest was aluminium. I'm finding it hard to understand how after so much cleaning the taste is still there be it a subtle version of what it was before. Which isn't present if only water is boiled.
When I fermented my wheat beer, the fementer still smelt of it even after a good bleaching. PBW sorted the smell out.

 

[smoo]

Just a thought. could it be that your boil element is getting too hot and melting the seals around it?
You said that it was boiling like crazy which Im thinking means while the liquid will only reach 100C the element could be much much hotter.