All Grain

[voota]

Hi.
I aquired a stainless steel stand this weekend and cut and welded it a bit, and as a result I felt now was the time to enter the world of all grain brewing. I have drawn a little sketch of what i plan to do (yes.. i'm not an engineer, laugh all you like)..
I will need to buy a pump and a burner if i use these plans, but i've got the rest.

Basically I've got a keg and burner on top. So i get the water up to strike temperature then drop it into the lauter tun (which i've gotta make), after the mash the idea is to pump the wort back into my boiler at the top and do the boil/cool then into the fermenter.

A few issues...
1. I think the pump is going to dry run (i'm thinking of buying the march pump from grain and grape) is this going to harm the pump or the wort when it mixes with oxygen.

2. Will it work? i'm not 100% familiar with the process.

3. What type of pipes do you use, i've got thick garden hose that will work with my fittings but i'm not sure if its food grade.

any other tips/suggestions please post them

 

[NRB]

using that design, you'll need to store the first runnings in a separate vessel whilst you run the sparge water into the tun, otherwise, you'll be sending the first runnings back to the HLT prior to sparging.

 

[sosman]

The march pump can get airlocked, the lower you put it, the less likely it is for it to be pumping air.

I have put this kind of hose + nut & tail on my march pump:

Note that the hose is not rated to 100C - but every one uses it. It does soften.

I also acquired some PFE tubing which easily takes the heat - I have a roll of the stuff.

 

[JasonY]

voota, you will need a hot liquor tank in there somewhere unless you plan on stuffing about. You can heat the strike water in your boiler as you describe however when it comes to the sparge you will need more hot water however you will be pumping into the boiler so you can't use it to supply the water at the same time.

Only way out of that is if your mash tun is huge and you plan on dumping all the sparge water on top? Oversized mash tun could be a pain for stable mash temps however.

How will you cool the wort? A couterflow chiller would certainly be the easiest and from the height of that you could probably gravity feed it into the fermenter.

I have a march pump and they are great, I believe they can run dry without issues (mine does) however I certainly minimise any dry running in case it stuffs the pump.

Pipes I use some drinking water garden hose I got from bunnings with the std brass snap together hose fittings. The hose is kinda translucent light blue. Can't say I have grown a third arm or died from using it yet.

 

[voota]

Gee thanks all, this forum is bloody great. I could slot the hot liquor tank down the bottom and pump it off when iv'e finished sparging. I forgot to say that i've already made a counterflow chiller so i think thats going to be fine. When i get it all together i'll post some photos.

 

[jayse]

Hi voota,
Using a 50 litres mash tun and adding all the sparge water and mixing it up is a great way to do it, i get 75% everytime doing that.
Another option is you could send the first batch to the fermentor and then clean it again after you put it in the kettle.
either way you can get away with not having a HLT, the fermentor if you were to go that way would have the suffix back, in this case i think 'underback' or if you were to store hot water in it ready for sparge it would be a 'hot liquior back'.
The 'back' pretty much means its just a vessel to store something in untill the vessel which it needs to go in is freed up. They aren't heated vessels just any food grade vessel to store something in for awhile. A great deal of breweries us these methods.

Anyway have fun with it, which ever way you end up going.

Jayse

 

[voota]

I've just bought a pump from this joint, $55 is pretty good inc. postage. Hope it works ok, if not i'll have to fork out the big bucks for a march pump. I found an article on the pump here

http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Gear/GSa...CheapPump.shtml


here is the pump
http://www.aquaticlifeaquariums.com.au/def...arget=d168.html

I'm starting to think i can set it up to circulate the mash around a bit too.


no affiliation ect.. just seems like a good price