Kabooby's Brew Rig

[Pumpy]

Well I tested out the new system today. I was planing on doing 40L of APA and 40L of my Belgian for the NSW xmas case and only ended up doing the APA. I had a few dramas

It pretty much went to shit when the sparge stuck after the first few litres went through the pump. After adding 500g of rice hulls I was able to get it flowing but not enough to raise the temp via the heat exchanger. I ended up using my immersion heater and finnished the mash.

I also found that my mash tun false bottom had collopsed . This is the first time this has happened.

Anyway, I still got 40L of APA at the end of the day.

Might have to make a few changes for the next brew,
- Insulate the hoses for the recirculation
- Dont crack the grain so fine
- Use a smaller seperate vessel for the HE

Kabooby

Whoops ,I am in Trouble ,

That grain you crushed on my Mash master mill .

• But how long do you recirculate for , I dont recirculate for very long ,as that can compact the grain
• The other thing is if you do get a stuck sparge you can always underlet a couple of litres of water to reset the grain bed .
• my false bottom collapsed too that is why I have the supporting ring under it
• If your pump is too powerful it will compact the grain bed .
• You should not need to insulate the pipes if they are Silicone .
• On second thoughts your Hermes units should act as Grant and not compact the grainbed

I mashed 40 litres of Chiswick bitter with exactly the same settng but it would not have been such a big grain bill .




Pumpy

 

[matti]

sounds a bit like my brewdays.
I either crack it too fine and ending up sparging for 2-3 hour.
last time I attempted to crack it a bit less but my efficiencies drop from 80ish to 70ish.
You'll get the hang of it. As long as it turn out to beer.

 

[Tony]

Hi mate.

I run a similar brewing cycle with the HERMS in the HLT.

I origionally set mine up...... as you have thinking it would step the mash temp up......... WRONG!

I use the HERMS in mine for holding temps in the mash only now.

I heat the 50 liters in the HLT to about 60 deg and underlet for a 52 deg protein rest @ 2L/KG

I top up the HLT and set the temp to about 68 deg.

I bring about 10 to 15 liters of infusion water to the boil in a pot on a seperate burner on the garage floor and tip it in the mash and stir it up after the 15 min protein rest is done.

HLT is usually up to temp by this stage and i recirc through so that my return temp is 1 or 2 deg hotter than my mash temp. This holds the mash temp stable in my system. I have insulated my pipes the best i can to prevent heat loss.

I use a slow flow through the HERMS to prevent compaction and work on a law of averages.

If im mashing at 65 deg, in my system, the exit temp of wort from the mash tun will be 63 and i set my HLT temp so i get a return temp of 67. This gives me predicatable and repeatable results in my beers.

It doesnt solve my infection problems or issues like over or under hopping but the beers fg for a given yeast, mouth feel ect, i can get them spot on every time.

there are a lot of people on here that will shoot me down about the temperature differences but i bet nones mash tun has a single stable temp through out the mash.

I hope this helps and you can apply some of it to your system.

cheers

 

[schooey]

but i bet nones mash tun has a single stable temp through out the mash.

That kinda got the better of me a little while ago, so I took the thermal imaging cameraout to the garage and pointed it at my mash tun. I was a bit dubious about doing this because it's a standard 50L stainless mash tun that many here have and I thought that with the thermal conductivity, it owuld be pretty even. After stirring the mash, this proved pretty true, but after 10 minutes or so it was surprising to see that there were different pockets of temps.

It would be interesting to postion a dozen or so data logging buttons in a tun and see what happens.

 

[Tony]

Thats the main advantage of the HERMS right there!

The hot liquor is kept flowing from top to bottom of the mash its a few deg cooler at the bottom of a 12 kg of grain 40 liter volume mash but the HERMS warms it back up and puts it back in.

I monitor the temperature at the center of the mash tun, the mash tun outlet to the march pump and on the mash return after it exits the HERMS. This gives me a complete picture of whats happening in hte mash and without the HERMS running i loose a lot of temp from the mash core, the whole thing cools down. With the HERMS running, the core of the mash stays stable with the bottom cooling down a bit (heat rises) and it's warmed back up.

If i want a light crisp well attenuated beer i hold the core mash temp at 64 deg with an exit temp of 62 and a return temp of 66.

If i want a full boddied low attenuating beer i mash at 67 with an exit temp of 65 and return at 68 to 69.

Its a sliding scale as you all know, just adjust the core mash temp to suit the profile the beer is going to have and your set.

Works for me anyway.

cheers

 

[kabooby]

Whoops ,I am in Trouble ,

That grain you crushed on my Mash master mill .

• But how long do you recirculate for , I dont recirculate for very long ,as that can compact the grain
• The other thing is if you do get a stuck sparge you can always underlet a couple of litres of water to reset the grain bed .
• my false bottom collapsed too that is why I have the supporting ring under it
• If your pump is too powerful it will compact the grain bed .
• You should not need to insulate the pipes if they are Silicone .
• On second thoughts your Hermes units should act as Grant and not compact the grainbed

I mashed 40 litres of Chiswick bitter with exactly the same settng but it would not have been such a big grain bill .




Pumpy

\

• I had only been recirculating for about 15 seconds with the flow rate backed off. It was even getting stuck with gravity into a jug.
• I underlet a few litres of water and it would get stuck again soon after
• I may have to put the ring on as well. It has always been fine in the past, always had to throttle the ball valve to slow down the lauter rate.
• I did notice the grain bed was like a block of clay when I was trying too break it up. This could have been due to the crush or the pump compacting it.

It must be something else I am doing. Our systems are not that different and you are not having any problems. My brewdays were that much easier on the BBQ with a couple of jugs

It's also a PITA having to disconnect and reconnect hoses all the time. Water and wort everywhere

Round 2 coming up this week.

Kabooby

 

[kabooby]

Hey Tony,

I ended up having to heat some infusion water on a seperate burner once I knew the herms was not going to recirculate. Nothing wrong with a 50 min protein rest is there :huh:

I guess I was being a bit optimistic thinking everythin was going to go to plan.

Kabooby

 

[Tony]

\
It's also a PITA having to disconnect and reconnect hoses all the time. Water and wort everywhere

Round 2 coming up this week.

Kabooby

Ball valves and pipework mate....... its the way of the future!

ducks for cover h34r:

I do find brewing with my old pot and esky fun and easy when it comes to cleaning but i love to fire up the rig for a big batch. Both have their goods and bads.

cheers

 

[kabooby]

Brewed again today on the system with much better results. 9kg of pilsner cracked on the same setting as the first batch, without the rice hulls, and the sparge only stuck once. :super:
I did a 3 step infusion instead of a temperature step mash and sparged much slower. Increased my efficiency by 5%.

I didn't make as much mess today either

Kabooby

 

[Pumpy]

There you go .

Was that the defining factor ?

Pumpy

 

[kabooby]

I think the main factor was the slower sparge rate. Much slower

Kabooby