How Much Dead Space In Your Esky Mash Tun?

[braufrau]

Tell me guys. How much dead space do you have in your esky mash tun? And do you use braid or what?
And does your tap go into the esky drainage hole and is therefore below the floor of the esky or is it above the floor?

And how hard is it to recirculate? I mean, can you get those stupid flecks of grain out or not?

 

[raven19]

My 55L easky would have about 2L deadspace (yet to actually measure it though!).

I use some SS mesh as a falsie (with a basic SS valve tap in place of the standard side plastic esky tap) and fly sparge, so just take the first runnings and put back ont top of grain bed. After that the grain bed filters just fine with no bits as yet.

 

[braufrau]

My 55L easky would have about 2L deadspace (yet to actually measure it though!).

I use some SS mesh as a falsie (with a basic SS valve tap in place of the standard side plastic esky tap) and fly sparge, so just take the first runnings and put back ont top of grain bed. After that the grain bed filters just fine with no bits as yet.

How much is the first runnings?

 

[loftboy]

Tell me guys. How much dead space do you have in your esky mash tun? And do you use braid or what?
And does your tap go into the esky drainage hole and is therefore below the floor of the esky or is it above the floor?

And how hard is it to recirculate? I mean, can you get those stupid flecks of grain out or not?

I have 2 esky's (25L rectangle & 57L round) converted to mashtun's using a Palmer style copper manifold. The dead space in both of them is less than 1L (910ml for the 57L).

The manifold has plenty of slots & therefore surface area. I've never had a stuck sparge or recirc issues.

This is the link on how to design/make a manifold - http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixD-1.html


[Edit - The tap for both of my mashtun's is on the side, where the standard outlet is]

 

[Fents]

i just whack 5L's into beersmith and it seems to hit targets mind you i use a 120L esky.

with my old willow 55L i used to put in 3L's and it worked out in beersmith still hitting targets.

how are you guys n gals measuring dead space? dump in a 9L bucket of water and measure how much drains out or whats left in it?

braufrau how much are you recircing? i have to go through at least 3L's before it starts running clear...also i find it helps if you dont have the tap fully cranked open, leave that for later when the wort is clear then crank open.

 

[braufrau]

i just whack 5L's into beersmith and it seems to hit targets mind you i use a 120L esky.

with my old willow 55L i used to put in 3L's and it worked out in beersmith still hitting targets.

how are you guys n gals measuring dead space? dump in a 9L bucket of water and measure how much drains out or whats left in it?

braufrau how much are you recircing? i have to go through at least 3L's before it starts running clear...also i find it helps if you dont have the tap fully cranked open, leave that for later when the wort is clear then crank open.

Thanks guys.

I just recirculated about ummm ... 8l. Still didn't get all the floaty bits out. I'm just waiting for the sparge water to settle and I'm going to try the alu. foil with holes trick. Sigh!

Seems to be a lot of variation in dead space, but 3l is not too out there I guess .. that's what I'm getting.
Well .. I put 1l of dead space in beersmith and got 2l less wort than I should have for two brews.

I've having trouble getting my strike T right too .. what do you put for specific heat?

 

[braufrau]

yeah. running it slower (thanks fents) and the alfoil trick seemed to help. Thanks guys. Feeling calmer now.

 

[drsmurto]

I use a 55L willow esky (altho it only holds ~48L) with a beerbelly falsie.

Dead space i have never measured as its 4/5ths of bugger all so i have it set as 0

I wait 10 mins after mashout and then start the runoff.

Recirc 1L, 2L tops. Tap open slow to begin with and then slowly speed it up. No alfoil used.

 

[raven19]

How much is the first runnings?

Generally until it runs without bits of grain.

As I fly sparge, I try to run it nice and slow too so the grain bed wont compact too much.

Only 1 AG beer done for me thus far though, so more tweaks and improvements are to be made on my system.

 

[raven19]

I've having trouble getting my strike T right too .. what do you put for specific heat?

This will be more based on experience of your particular setup, and if you preheat your tun.

I would allow for 5 degrees initially in lost temp once grain is added to mash tun water, but have a boiled kettle and some col tap water on hand just incase adjustments need to be made. Maybe place 3L less than required in your mash tun with grain, check temps and adjust to suit.

Take measurements so you can start to get a feel for how your system works, then you can confidently get the temps right in future. I was a few degrees off in my first AG, needed more cold tap water to get things about right.

2c.

 

[Fents]

I've having trouble getting my strike T right too .. what do you put for specific heat?

is your strike water coming from a dedicated HLT or from a pot on a burner?

I always get the strike water up to 74c, dump it all in the tun, let it drop to 72c (sorta negates pre heating tun too) then when its at 72C start doughing in and 98% i hit 66c, so if im after 65c i just wait till the strike waters dropped to 71c etc.

mind you i dont have a HLT as such i just heat all water in a keggle and bucket it in to the mash tun....yes you read correct sometimes i bucket 45L's of 74c water from keggle to mash tun. Lifes hard when you brew on you back decking..

 

[warra48]

I use a small mashtun, a 25 litre Willow cooler, and a manifold I made myself.
My dead space is only litre if I tip my cooler towards the tap at the end of draining or sparge.

 

[Cortez The Killer]

Dead space in my 44L willow with beer belly falsie is about 500ml

Cheers

 

[JonnyAnchovy]

deadspace in my coleman cooler with SS braid is around 2.5L - I get better results when I loop the braid into the deadspace directly under the spigot and tilt the entire tun.

This is all theroetical and with water - the first non-BIAB brew will be happening as soon as I get my new kettle! one more week!

 

[Jakechan]

47 litre rectangular Igloo esky
Palmer-style copper manifold
Tap is slightly above base


About 750ml leftover/deadspace

Works like a dream.

Cheers,
Jake

 

[braufrau]

Well goodness! What variation there is!

Thanks for the info on the T fents. Sounds about right to me, given my experience today. I'll have a little fiddle with beersmith to emulate your numbers.

Oh one thing went well ... I hooked the chiller up the drippers in the garden and left it to do its job with a clear consciencce!

 

[Goofinder]

Hmm... I measured 3.5L in my 55L (or thereabouts) esky with SS braid and that seems to work out to the right amount in Beersmith. Maybe I need to upgrade to a falsie at some point.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I currently use a 47L plastic storage box (actually holds a little more) with a braid separation set-up.

It has a "raw" deadspace of about 2.5L if I didn't take measures.... but I do.

Because I can see through my mash tun, I know where the liquid level is. When it is close to the top of the tap, I but a brick (on its end) under the other end of the mash tun... this drains out liquid to less than 500ml of actual deadspace.

Then I put another brick under the opposite corner to the tap (tap is in the corner not the middle, for exactly this reason) and tilt it towards the tap from that direction as well - so its on a diagonal. This gets out all but 250ish mls of free liquid.

And the tun is let drain into a 5L jug the entire time he kettle is coming to the boil, and that usually nets 1-2L that drains out of the mash more slowly.

So if you believe the 1.0L of liquid absorption for every kg of mash - then my mash tun deadspace is about negative 1.5L

I usually only have to recirculate a litre or so before the runoff is clear ... does your braid maybe have gaps in it??

TB

 

[Jakechan]

I forgot the recirc bit. Its only about a litre here for me before it runs clear.

 

[rich_lamb]

part of the reason for the vagueness is that grain tends to drain slowly - it's not as though you just sparge and the wort pours out and stops. You usually get some slowing and if you leave it for a while you accumulate more at the bottom of the mash tun - so how do you know where to stop?

I use a 25L tun and I think there's about 1L of dead space around my crude homemade filter thingy - based on testing without grain. But it works completely differently with grain, so I just adjust my "grain absorption" to about 1.3L/kg and don't use deadspace at all. It's not that critical anyway as you can keep sparging till you get what you need.

Similarly recirc: what exactly is clear? I only recirc about 2L each time (batch sparge) and the worts not clear but it's reasonably good. You should be abe to recirc until the grainy stuff is gone, but I've found I can recirc for ages and never be really sure it's clear.

These are dynamic processes, and take a bit of practice and getting used to. I don't use Beersmith or whatever - wrote my own spreadsheet to do what I need.