stux
Hacienda Brewhaus
- Joined
- 15/12/09
- Messages
- 2,978
- Reaction score
- 310
60L Fermenter with Blowoff, heatbelt+fridge etc
98L Pot w Italian Burner on MP Adjustable Reg
50L Dunk Sparge Pot on 2 ring burner
4 17L cubes
I cube about up to 68L of wort, and 60L goes into the fermenter (leaving behind cold break etc). I get 3L of trub which allows me to fill 3 kegs.
Mash/Lauter Efficiency is up to about 90%. Conversion Efficiency is 99%. Into Fermenter Efficiency is about 75%. The biggest loss is from kettle trub. I end up with about 6L.
Generally I'd use about 12.5KG to 17KG of grain depending on OG and around about a 20L sparge depending on the grain bill size.
Misc Tools
Sash Rope + Pulley - do not use ribbed rope!
Gas Match
Brewers Spoon
SS Ruler for measuring volumes
Cake Rack + Kitchen Twine + 60cm SS Potato Masher/Mash Weapon
Hydro + Test Jar (now have a nice glass one)
Digital Thermometer (I broke it leaving it in a bucket of starsan... I now use a Thermpen)
Blichman Brewer's Gloves. Good for squeezing BIAB bags!
13.7KG of cracked grain. 25KG will fill two handy pails.
I use a cake rack with a piece of string to prevent bag scorching, combined with mashing while raising temps, there's no need to raise the bag. The string is tied to a pot handler as its nigh on impossible to remove otherwise after the mash!
Getting to Strike Temp
Dough-in, with 60cm SS potato masher, just dump the buckets as fast as I can
Agitating the mash as part of doughin, and making sure there's no doughballs
And I hit my first step exactly. The 0.1C is the calibration error on the thermometer!
Drawstring tightened on BIAB bag. I'll start heating the 20L or so of sparge liquor in the 50L pot to boiling now. Once it boils I'll cut the gas and it will cool to the right temp for sparging.
Raising 15KG of sodden grain can be tricky. A simple 2:1 pully makes it easier. All parts from Bunnings/BCF
Raise the bag, and let drain, and crank the gas. The bag has 2 runs reinforcing webbing running through its south pole from 4 of the 8 lifting tags. Its a baked bean can style bag. SWMBO Mk II.
Remove cake rack
Once the bag is mostly drained, I lower it into my dunk sparge pot... this basically involves swing the rope as I lower it. I then use the draw string to hold it open, and re-wet the grain with my masher, and basically agitate it a few times over 10 minutes. Its basically a little mini-biab. In the meantime the main kettle is coming up to the boil (or already has).
I then move the pulley to the skyhook above the sparge pot, and after 10 minutes, I raise the bag again and let drain.
I have the gas going on the dunk sparge pot again, so its coming to the boil. I add as much of the sparge liquor as I can to the main boil to bring it to about 90L (top of the rivet), and I'll add the rest after 30 minutes or so when there is more room in the kettle. It will be boiling by that time too.
To catch any drips while I have the pot away from the dripping bag I chunk a 20L pot under the bag!
Meanwhile, the italian burner is well on its way to orbit
Proceed to add hops and finally brewbrite etc as per normal, except when I can I add the remainder of the dunk sparge liquor... Which I've left draining the entire time. I'll re-add the drainings from the 20L occasionally.
Whirlpool. Spoon Induced.
Trub Cone, using a SS jiggle siphon. No taps to harbour infection
Four 17L cubes filled to about full, any air squeezed out. I'll only transfer 60L to my fermenter and leave behind any cold-break or hop mess, which I find causes a hop greasiness in the brew.
60L in the 60L fermenter. Leaves about 5L of headspace but necesitates a blow-off tube. Fermcap helps. I found that in order to prevent the fridge temp bouncing around with the heating/cooling fighting each other I needed to apply the heat directly to the fermenter, and I use a heatbelt to do that, and measure the wort with a fermowell which gets me the actual wort temp. The fermowell is roughly placed halfway between the centre and the outer wall. If I heated the fridge cavity with a lamp (like I used to), then the fridge would have to cool a hot cavity before cooling the wort, and then it would have to heat a cold cavity before heating the wort, then once the right temperature was hit, it would keep climbing/falling. Directly heating breaks this cycle.
You can see the top of the fermowell (from beerbelly) here. I prefer bungs for the blow off as I can add hops and stuff easily.
I find brewing triple batches is the only way I can keep my keg fridge stocked. It means I can basically have 3 kegs "behind" each tap, and by the time the last keg blows I can have a new batch ready. I have a 12 keg fleet whcih means 4 batches, and I'll generally have 3 kegs finished when I decide to do a new brew. I've provided beer for family engagements/weddings etc, and we've gone through up to 8 kegs at once.
Beer. No finings, no Filtering. Bright enough for me
PS: I took most of these photos a while ago, but I found them today.
98L Pot w Italian Burner on MP Adjustable Reg
50L Dunk Sparge Pot on 2 ring burner
4 17L cubes
I cube about up to 68L of wort, and 60L goes into the fermenter (leaving behind cold break etc). I get 3L of trub which allows me to fill 3 kegs.
Mash/Lauter Efficiency is up to about 90%. Conversion Efficiency is 99%. Into Fermenter Efficiency is about 75%. The biggest loss is from kettle trub. I end up with about 6L.
Generally I'd use about 12.5KG to 17KG of grain depending on OG and around about a 20L sparge depending on the grain bill size.
Misc Tools
Sash Rope + Pulley - do not use ribbed rope!
Gas Match
Brewers Spoon
SS Ruler for measuring volumes
Cake Rack + Kitchen Twine + 60cm SS Potato Masher/Mash Weapon
Hydro + Test Jar (now have a nice glass one)
Digital Thermometer (I broke it leaving it in a bucket of starsan... I now use a Thermpen)
Blichman Brewer's Gloves. Good for squeezing BIAB bags!
13.7KG of cracked grain. 25KG will fill two handy pails.
I use a cake rack with a piece of string to prevent bag scorching, combined with mashing while raising temps, there's no need to raise the bag. The string is tied to a pot handler as its nigh on impossible to remove otherwise after the mash!
Getting to Strike Temp
Dough-in, with 60cm SS potato masher, just dump the buckets as fast as I can
Agitating the mash as part of doughin, and making sure there's no doughballs
And I hit my first step exactly. The 0.1C is the calibration error on the thermometer!
Drawstring tightened on BIAB bag. I'll start heating the 20L or so of sparge liquor in the 50L pot to boiling now. Once it boils I'll cut the gas and it will cool to the right temp for sparging.
Raising 15KG of sodden grain can be tricky. A simple 2:1 pully makes it easier. All parts from Bunnings/BCF
Raise the bag, and let drain, and crank the gas. The bag has 2 runs reinforcing webbing running through its south pole from 4 of the 8 lifting tags. Its a baked bean can style bag. SWMBO Mk II.
Remove cake rack
Once the bag is mostly drained, I lower it into my dunk sparge pot... this basically involves swing the rope as I lower it. I then use the draw string to hold it open, and re-wet the grain with my masher, and basically agitate it a few times over 10 minutes. Its basically a little mini-biab. In the meantime the main kettle is coming up to the boil (or already has).
I then move the pulley to the skyhook above the sparge pot, and after 10 minutes, I raise the bag again and let drain.
I have the gas going on the dunk sparge pot again, so its coming to the boil. I add as much of the sparge liquor as I can to the main boil to bring it to about 90L (top of the rivet), and I'll add the rest after 30 minutes or so when there is more room in the kettle. It will be boiling by that time too.
To catch any drips while I have the pot away from the dripping bag I chunk a 20L pot under the bag!
Meanwhile, the italian burner is well on its way to orbit
Proceed to add hops and finally brewbrite etc as per normal, except when I can I add the remainder of the dunk sparge liquor... Which I've left draining the entire time. I'll re-add the drainings from the 20L occasionally.
Whirlpool. Spoon Induced.
Trub Cone, using a SS jiggle siphon. No taps to harbour infection
Four 17L cubes filled to about full, any air squeezed out. I'll only transfer 60L to my fermenter and leave behind any cold-break or hop mess, which I find causes a hop greasiness in the brew.
60L in the 60L fermenter. Leaves about 5L of headspace but necesitates a blow-off tube. Fermcap helps. I found that in order to prevent the fridge temp bouncing around with the heating/cooling fighting each other I needed to apply the heat directly to the fermenter, and I use a heatbelt to do that, and measure the wort with a fermowell which gets me the actual wort temp. The fermowell is roughly placed halfway between the centre and the outer wall. If I heated the fridge cavity with a lamp (like I used to), then the fridge would have to cool a hot cavity before cooling the wort, and then it would have to heat a cold cavity before heating the wort, then once the right temperature was hit, it would keep climbing/falling. Directly heating breaks this cycle.
You can see the top of the fermowell (from beerbelly) here. I prefer bungs for the blow off as I can add hops and stuff easily.
I find brewing triple batches is the only way I can keep my keg fridge stocked. It means I can basically have 3 kegs "behind" each tap, and by the time the last keg blows I can have a new batch ready. I have a 12 keg fleet whcih means 4 batches, and I'll generally have 3 kegs finished when I decide to do a new brew. I've provided beer for family engagements/weddings etc, and we've gone through up to 8 kegs at once.
Beer. No finings, no Filtering. Bright enough for me
PS: I took most of these photos a while ago, but I found them today.
