Fat *******'s Rig.

[Fat Bastard]

Cheers Shaun!
Now just to get a break in the damn weather so I can do a brew on it!

 

[Fat Bastard]

Well, got a fine day yesterday, so did the commissioning brew on the new rig, a simple saison I've done a few times before. A very easy brew day by all accounts, and somewhat unexpectedly.

Started at 7:45am, I had tested the HLT the day before so it was still at 45 after being 56 at 3pm the day before. The insulation works well! It wasn't until after 8:30 that I doughed in, 2400w is somewhat under powered for 70l. I have a timer switch, but thought I should experience the full horror before I used it.

The recirc pump needs a valve plumbed in to throttle it back, I slowed it as much as I could with the speed controller and 3 way valve, but it was still too fast, compacting the bed to the point that when I switched it over to transfer to the kettle ( throttled by a separate valve) the entire grain bed sprang up off the false bottom, although I got no grain in the kettle, the wort was not as clear as it had been in the MLT.

Another drama concerned mash pH. Should have been 5.4, and wound up at 5.1. I couldn't work out why, and didn't bother correcting it. I found the reason when I pulled the HLT out to dump the water during clean up. A solid clump of salts stuck to the bottom. I'll make an extension for the HLT return to increase the agitation at the bottom of the tank to stop this, and also to stop it sounding like a drunk pissing in a garbage can while recirculating.

All in all it was a very easy brew day, hit all my numbers, and had beer in the fermenter in 4 hours. Cleanup was much the same as before, but speeded somewhat by the extra hot water available in the HLT. The CIP process starts by pumping hot water from the HLT to the hosed out MLT and recirculating with PBW while the boil is under way. This same water is pumped to the kettle once the boil is over and it has been hosed out. This is then recirculated through the chiller via the power whirlpool. Clean water recycled from the chiller cooling water is used to rinse and then to water the garden.

The whole day took around 8 hours from go to having everything tided up to SWMBO pleasing standards, and seemed very relaxed compared to the old rig.

Will post up some pics soon.

Cheers!

FB

 

[Fat Bastard]

You can see the violence of the pump in this pic, taken at dough in.

Wort was nice and clear at the end of mash. Of some concern was the lack of any foam on the surface. I suspect this has to do with the pump speed as when i was using the Little Brown Pump, I always had a thick scum on top of the mash.

Thin this happened: I suspect it has something to do with the recirc speed, because it literally sprang up as soon as I throttled the transfer valve back to fly sparge. It was a solid lump and didn't appear to have any channelling or cracking. Also, the foam made an appearence at this stage. With the old system, this would happen at this stage too, without the grain bed jumping up at me. Lots of air seems to get trapped in the bed. Maybe it's par for the course with recirculating systems? I dunno, I've never seen anyone else's.

Beer into fermenter:

CIP Process: Pumping the PBW solution from MLT to Kettle via a filter sock to keep out any chunks that may have got missed by the hose. Chiller is plumbed via whirlpool outlet and returns via kettle drain.

general arrangement of stand without vessels. It's actually quite light to move like this, a food thing as i've got to lift it over a step to get it back into the shed.

 

[real_beer]

That rig looks terrific you Magnificent Fat *******. Great to hear everything worked and went as expected, great effort! :beer:

 

[431neb]

Thanks for posting such interesting content FB. Well done.

 

[geneabovill]

Definite food for thought for my build. Love how tidy the whole thing is. I'll definitely pick yer brains when it comes to build time for me.

 

[MastersBrewery]

Good to see grain in it! The only thing you could possibly add would be blichmanns sparge arm to the current arrangement, would really make fly sparging a breeze, but probably over the top, but you know ya gotta add more, it's just one of those itches.

MB