Pebble Bed Mashtun

[Tony]

its been a while since we had a "my coopers plastic spoon broke stiring my mash"....... they all rear thier heads eventually

 

[jakub76]

From the mash tun to the kettle so sterilising...

OK point taken...but I still wouldn't want my beer tasting like dirt, or worse. Perhaps cleanliness is a better term.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Five years ago, Yep years later I still woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat due to the continual humiliation by fellow brewers until 'Thirstyboy' did a brew day using the 'gravel method' and proclaimed it a sucess .

From that day on i felt exonerated .

pumpy

I was involved.. but it was primarily Spillsmosofit's idea - Pebbles, rocks, glass marbles, stainless ball bearings, lego blocks, wood chips.... All would do the same job. The idea is that they simply emulate a false bottom... but one that can be "poured" into the mash tun and conform to its full cross section. The voile isn't necessary at all really... but it makes the tun a hell of a lot easier to clean out afterwards.

 

[bjay]

Looked like a koi carp was going to come up out ya pebbles

bjay

 

[Pumpy]

I was involved.. but it was primarily Spillsmosofit's idea - Pebbles, rocks, glass marbles, stainless ball bearings, lego blocks, wood chips.... All would do the same job. The idea is that they simply emulate a false bottom... but one that can be "poured" into the mash tun and conform to its full cross section. The voile isn't necessary at all really... but it makes the tun a hell of a lot easier to clean out afterwards.

Well done Spillsmostofit ,was it not Alexander Bell who had Faradays book on electrical experiments translated from German only to verify Faradays tests (,eventually for commercil advantage)

 

[tavas]

If you pre heat the rocks enough, they should carry sufficient heat so that you won't have a temperature drop over the length of the mash. Perhaps 1 or 2 *c warmer than strike temp to allow for losses while you load your grain and water.

A quick boil prior to first use will kill off any major nasties and should remove most dirt and crap.

 

[Pumpy]

Well done Spillsmostofit ,was it not Alexander Bell who had Faradays book on electrical experiments translated from German only to verify Faradays tests (,eventually for commercial advantage)

Sorry just correcting myself it was Edison who on his 21st birthday bought an old edition of Michael Farradays (1791-1867) laboratory journals.

if there is any correlation there ?

Pumpy :blink:

 

[zebba]

I was involved.. but it was primarily Spillsmosofit's idea - Pebbles, rocks, glass marbles, stainless ball bearings, lego blocks, wood chips.... All would do the same job. The idea is that they simply emulate a false bottom... but one that can be "poured" into the mash tun and conform to its full cross section. The voile isn't necessary at all really... but it makes the tun a hell of a lot easier to clean out afterwards.

Yeah the only negative I'm seeing is cleaning the voile. The stones are easy, the voile though has grain all through it. Mind you, it's still only a couple of minutes effort. And if I cut/sew the voile to line the esky better (it's just a sheet ATM), that time could be halved again.

I imagine that gravel would be harder again. The stones work nicely - they create a good cavity and appear to allow for good fluid flow through the mash - but I think they need the voile or I'd be recircing for an hour to get a good filter happening

I honestly think I'm going to stick with this. Certainly for the next few brews at least. When I get a proper kettle sorted out I'll talk to my guy about what a SS falsie will cost, but I'm certainly not going to be stressing to get one.

 

[MVZOOM]

Our attempt using gravel:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...c=26225&hl=

didn't need the voile at the end of the day - in fact it just made the job harder.

Cheers - Mike

 

[Pumpy]

Our attempt using gravel:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...c=26225&hl=

didn't need the voile at the end of the day - in fact it just made the job harder.

Cheers - Mike

Good work MVZOOM.

Nothing wrong with the 'Gravel method mashers' coming out of the closet ,

always good to have the pics worth a thousand words .

pumpy

 

[chappo1970]

Where do you keep the rocks in the new brewery Poompy?

 

[zebba]

Our attempt using gravel:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...c=26225&hl=

I think the BigV barleywine brewday may have gone a little easier following this method from the looks of it

didn't need the voile at the end of the day - in fact it just made the job harder.

Cause I'm using larger rocks I definitely needed mine. Without it would have been the same as not using a false bottom at all and just loading the grain straight into the esky - the rocks would have added nothing except sapping some heat out at the start (glad to see you guys had the same issue I had!)

Beersmith is telling me I got 80% efficiency. 80% effiency with 1.060 wort = awesome IMO. Not sure why it is different.

First value I used (74%) was from here: http://brew.messerschmidt.com.au/index.php...tion=efficiency, although I used the post boil SG and litres into the cube (so minus 3lt trub in the kettle), not the pre-boil it says (not sure if it makes a difference). If I use that page to calc effiency into the kettle it comes out @ 90%

I think those figures tell me I got a nice efficient mash and sparge