What Do U Use As A Sieve To Sparge With?

[Batz]

Here you go Johnno this is what I used for sometime with success

It's really sort of a big sieve , but sold to put over food to keep the flys from throwing up on it , I just could not find a sieve large enough otherwise

 

[Batz]

And because it has no handles I sit it in a colander

Hold big mobs of grain , and it was cheap .

Some may find it useful.

Batz

 

[johnno]

Thanks batz,
That looks ideal for this sort of stuff. Gonna look around for one to see how much they cost.

cheers

 

[SJW]

OK You guys i am going thru the process and i think i will stay with the buckets for now, and may even try and get one of the sieves of Batz.
Anyway do you fellas use some type of shower rose to spray the hot water, or the first litre of the wort, back over the grain bed that acts like a filter? as i would think that u dont want to stir up the grain bed too much

 

[Batz]

I poured very carefully out of a jug , and over the back of my stirring spoon

Have you seen GL's site on this


http://users.bigpond.net.au/RBI/About%20Homebrew.htm

 

[PostModern]

PoMo

the manifold should not fit exactly in the bottom.
It should be equidistance from the sides and the centre to create even flows thru the grain bed.
eg if it is 2 inches between the pipes then the pipes need to be one inch from the sides.

The non-slotted ends fit the esky end-to end. The distance between the two slotted pipes is half the distance from each of the pipes to the side walls.

I posted the link the design is based on http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixD.html

The idea was (when my friend built the manifold) to be able to do efficient minimashes. As simple as the colander/flyguard, bucket-in-a-bucket designs are, they don't allow you to control the rate of the lauter (with the exception of a tapped outer bucket in the 2 bucket system). The irrigation tap on the plastic tube on my manifold allows you to slow the flow and lauter for as long as you like while avoiding HSA.

If you like fly sparging on the cheap, you can set up your HLT above the esky/tun and use another irrigation tap and let it sparge at the same rate as the lauter. I just prefer batch sparging, mostly so that once the first lauter is done, I can work out almost exactly how much water to sparge with and not exceed my boiling capacity. Not that I get "supremely" good efficiency (as I leave lots of fermentables behind in "big" 3Kg mashes), but I tend to adjust gravity with extract in the fermenter anyway.

So far I've made about 8 partial mash brews with this and I'm quite happy with it. Happy enough that when I switch to AG, I'll be making a scaled up version of this to use in my 30 litre tapless esky. The great part is that you can still use the esky as an esky on non-brew days

 

[SJW]

PoMo
but I tend to adjust gravity with extract in the fermenter anyway.

How do you do this?

 

[GMK]

PoMo
but I tend to adjust gravity with extract in the fermenter anyway.

How do you do this?

I have adjusted for correct gravity before by the following:

if too high - add more water to dilute down to gravity wanted. Usually with the hydrometer in the wort while i add the water.

If too low - add some liquid malt to the fermenter and stir in until it is disolved.
Take another sg ready and adjust as necessary.
I have also added dextrose as well.

Mad up a double batch of Muntons Barley wine with 4kg of malt that was boiled for 20mins with hops. Wanted sg of 1100. Cans were supposed to make it upto 14ltrs with 1 kg of dextrose. = 28 ltrs.
Took an sg reading at 22ltrs and it was only 1080 - added 1kg of dextrose (as i felt that the 4kg of malt - some light and amber was enough) to bring it upto around 1100 mark. Could have used dark brown sugar, invert sugar - golden syrup or more malt.

I know that to the german reinstadt - spelling not right - and the purists - adding dextrose is wrong. h34r:

Hope this helps

 

[SJW]

Sorry GMK i did not read his reply correct. He did say that he adjusted the OG in the "fermenter". i thought he ment that he adjusted the OG during the boil. Now that would be a good trick!!!

 

[sintax69]

How do you partial guys cool your wort have you got emerssion coolers etc or do you dump it in the fermenter hot ????

did one of the country brewers wet packs and ended up running round the house with a pot of boiling wort that i ended up dunking in the laundary sink but was still hot as hell after adding water to the fermenter30c+


sintax

 

[RobW]

Make up your volume with ice. Ice cream containers are good, 2 or 3 of those and then tapwater to your final volume should get you close to pitching temp. Drop the ice straight in after the boil so you cool the wort quick & avoid any HSA. Then tip into the fermenter & top up with water.

 

[PostModern]

I generally boil in two large pots on my stove. By the time the boil ends, I transfer the contents into the largest pot. I place the lid on the pot then put it in a sink full of cold water. After about 5 mins, I empty the sink then refill it with cold water, ice packs and milk bottles filled with water and frozen - an ice bath.

It takes about 45 mins to an hour to bring the temp down enough (about 8 litres volume). Occassionally swirling the pot speeds things up a bit and helps to centre the hops and break material at the bottom of the pot.

KenEasy, be careful adding ice to wort. Make sure it's made from boiled water and preferably frozen in a sealed environment. There are a surprising number of bacterial spores in the freezer. You don't want to add them to your wort. However, that's just extreme paranoia.

 

[Bobby]

postmodern, when you do the ice bath chuck a good handfull of salt in the ice water slurry, it drops the temp a little more. Thats what i do at uni and it works well.

 

[Batz]

When I was doing lots of partials I just used a couple of ice cream containers of ice, all too easy

You don't need to get hung up on all the fancy gear , that'll come later

Just get out and brew :chug: :chug:

 

[Bobby]

Just get out and brew

=====> 'Just Brew It'

would do alright on the AHB gear.

 

[deebee]

POMO's technique works for me too. Always make sure I have plenty of ice in the freezer before brew day.

I do wonder about the effect if has on the pots. I bought a big cheap one from KMart for $15 or something and don't care about that but more often use our largest good quality thick bottomed pot.

Do you reckon that placing the pot at boiling temp into cold water so that one side of the S/S is hot and the other side cold has any impact that, over time, will cause problems? I'm thinking about the seam where the thick bottom meets the side of the pot and possibly where the handles are spot welded on.

 

[RobW]

KenEasy, be careful adding ice to wort. Make sure it's made from boiled water and preferably frozen in a sealed environment. There are a surprising number of bacterial spores in the freezer. You don't want to add them to your wort. However, that's just extreme paranoia.

Point taken PoMo but in practice it doesn't seem to matter because you drop the ice into the just boiled wort which knocks of any surface bugs, plus the ice is made with the same tap water you use to top up the fermenter. Having a big active yeast starter seems to be the most important thing - get the yeast going before anything else has a chance.

 

[sintax69]

Thanks Guys thats ice idea sounds like a easy as method

cheers big ears
sintax

 

[PostModern]

Do you reckon that placing the pot at boiling temp into cold water so that one side of the S/S is hot and the other side cold has any impact that, over time, will cause problems? I'm thinking about the seam where the thick bottom meets the side of the pot and possibly where the handles are spot welded on.

I don't think it'd be a problem. I understand your concern, as I use our Baccarat pots, but I think they'd suffer just as much stress going from room temp onto a hot range - which is what they're designed to do.

 

[SJW]

There u go PM, i hope there is no copyright on yours, but that was the best i could do. Next is the chiller.