2 tier 2 vessel system - debating a new build

i've been searching, but haven't came across too much info of people brewing with this. So for the people who have. How do you enjoy it? i know eff% suffers just a titch, but that doesn't bother me all that much.

i'm debating switching to a 2 tier 2 vessel system (like a direct fired bastard child of a brutus 20) because my three vessel system is WAY too large to move around to the brewing events, taking up way too much room in the backyard too (as seen in the photo below).

so from what i've read so far, this is the process for the 2 vessel brewing

1) heat strike water and pump to cooler (i have 2 kegs, but no false bottom for the keg in the meantime).
2) mash for 60 minutes.
3) heat sparge water as normal
4) start recircing from the MT to the HLT/BK until liquid in both become equal gravity.
4) turn the burner to start heating the wort to mash out.
5) drain everything to the BK and start the normal brew day procedcures

sound about right?

A variation of batch sparge is done often in small breweries. It's called batch sparging by many home brewers but it isn't because you are recirculating your wort. The method provides a more efficient extraction then the Brutus 2.0 method. Recirculate for your total mash time and then mash out/sparge into the bk.

You've got the steps down. I love my Brutus 20 setup. Small and easy to use. Efficiencies in the low to mid 70s for most beers, which is good enough for me.

OneHoppyGuy said:

A variation of batch sparge is done often in small breweries. It's called batch sparging by many home brewers but it isn't because you are recirculating your wort. The method provides a more efficient extraction then the Brutus 2.0 method. Recirculate for your total mash time and then mash out/sparge into the bk.

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what method are you referring to exactly?

you're getting 70's? That's excellent. I'm in the camp that believes 70's is about right.

broadbill said:

what method are you referring to exactly?

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Traditional batch sparge as I understand it has the mash sitting undisturbed for the duration of the mash. The wort is drained and more water is added. The method I described is different in that the wort is recirculated and kept at temperature (can be step mashed) and the rinse water is added as the mash kettle is emptied (some refer to this step as a fly sparge).

OneHoppyGuy said:

you're getting 70's? That's excellent. I'm in the camp that believes 70's is about right.

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For average session beers, yes. One downfall of the system is a steep decline on efficiency above ~1.060. For those beers I compensate with additional grain.

Demon said:

For average session beers, yes. One downfall of the system is a steep decline on efficiency above ~1.060. For those beers I compensate with additional grain.

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oooh, not good... beer begins at 1.080 :rockin:

I've tried a two vessel system and have had inconsistent results with it. I had always been able to "hit my numbers" with a three vessel system, but could not get it right on a two vessel recirculating system. Ive tried full volume mashes mashing out thru HERMS, Ive tried mashing the way the OP described (Brutus 20). Its not that my efficiencies were bad, Ive gotten high 60s, low 70s. The problem Ive had is that the efficiencies are not consistent. I could get consistency between batches of the same beer, but my efficiencies were not consistent between styles.

Using batch sparging with a three vessel system, I could set my efficiency in my brewing software at 75 and be sure that I hit my numbers for all my recipes. Using the two vessel system, it was a crapshoot as to what my efficiency was going to be. I didn't try to brew a high gravity beer with the two vessel system. All of the brews were in the 1.040 to 1.060 range.

I loved the ease and minimalism of the two vessel system, but I just couldn't get it to work consistently in my hands.

OneHoppyGuy said:

A variation of batch sparge is done often in small breweries. It's called batch sparging by many home brewers but it isn't because you are recirculating your wort.

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I thought (by way of Bobby_M) that batch sparging was difined as running off the entire batch at a single gravity, not the progressivly decreasing gravity you get with fly sparging.

No sparge, single batch sparge or multi batch sparge; the gravity doesn't change while the tun is being lautered. Recirculating before the lauter doesn't change this.

AnOldUR said:

I thought (by way of Bobby_M) that batch sparging was difined as running off the entire batch at a single gravity, not the progressivly decreasing gravity you get with fly sparging.

No sparge, single batch sparge or multi batch sparge; the gravity doesn't change while the tun is being lautered. Recirculating before the lauter doesn't change this.

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I think batch Sparging is what I do: I drain off all my 1st runnings, add all sparge water at one go, then drain that til I reach my target pre-boil volume. If so, then I have to report that the entire runoff is NOT at a single gravity during the 2nd runnings. As the runoff progresses, the gravity (and color) drops off sharply.

Piratwolf said:

As the runoff progresses, the gravity (and color) drops off sharply.

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You're either not mixing thoroughly or your lautering slower than necessary for a batch sparge giving the mash time to stratify. Possibly both.

In any case you're allowing fresher liquid to flow through your grain bed, rinsing the bed as it passes. As the sugars and color is rinsed from the grain your gravity and SRM decrease. Your technique is more "fly" like since you're rinsing on-the-fly rather than as a batch.



edit to say;
The point that I was making is that IMO recirculating does not define the difference between batch and fly sparging as OneHoppyGuy stated. Recirculating is just an expensive way to evenly distribute the sugars in the mash before lauter. It has the same effect as stirring the mash. It's the lauter that makes the difference. Were the sugars lautered from the tun as a single density batch or in a continuous fashion starting with higher gravity wort?




OP, sorry for the jack.

AnOLDur--now I see your point, and it makes sense to me. I think my issue is probably draining too slow. I should switch to a 1/2" or larger ball valve, but I think I'll wait for Tri-clamps for my next upgrade

AnOldUR said:

edit to say;
The point that I was making is that IMO recirculating does not define the difference between batch and fly sparging as OneHoppyGuy stated. Recirculating is just an expensive way to evenly distribute the sugars in the mash before lauter. It has the same effect as stirring the mash. It's the lauter that make the difference. Were the sugars lautered from the tun as a single density batch or on-the-fly starting with higher gravity wort.

OP, sorry for the jack.

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Just as a point of clarification:

In the method described by the OP, after mashing, hot water is pumped from the HLT/BK into the MT while at the same time draining wort into the HLT/BK. This water/wort mixture is recirculated and heated until mash out temp is reached and until the SG of both vessels are in equilibrium. So at The beginning of this recirculation the SG of the liquid in the HLT/BK and MT are at different SGs. They are at equilibrium at the end of recirculation. When they are in equilibrium the wort is drained into the BK

A confusing factor in all this is often the mash is recirculated during the saccrification rest as a means of trying to increase efficiency.

OneHoppyGuy said:

oooh, not good... beer begins at 1.080 :rockin:

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i rarely brew above 1.060 unless i'm doin something insane, i like having 2-3 beers without wobbling lol

but now i'm wondering about a sparge process, since i usually do 5 gallon batches and don't really have a point to 10 gallon batches (unless i start throwing major parties lol)

how does this process sound?

1) heat strike water
2) pump to cooler/keg
3) do the entire 60/90 minute rest
4) recirc for a few minutes to set the grainbed
5) heat sparge water
6) slowly dump the sparge water ontop of the grainbed then after all the sparge water is at the top above the grain and first runnings, slowly do one drain without recircing through the entire system, it would be sort of a fly sparge because only clean water is pushing down on the wort, but done in a batch. if that makes sense... would that help eff% in this scenario?

If your mash tun is sized large enough, just put your full water volume in. This is what I do for 5 gallon batches on my setup and recirculate towards the end of the mash.

Edit - I also direct fire the mash tun for temp adjustments and ramp up to mashout, which wouldn't work with a cooler. If you aren't doing a mashout though, this method will work fine since the cooler should easily be able to maintain temp.

Rivenin said:

6) slowly dump the sparge water ontop of the grainbed then after all the sparge water is at the top above the grain and first runnings, slowly do one drain without recircing through the entire system, it would be sort of a fly sparge because only clean water is pushing down on the wort, but done in a batch. if that makes sense... would that help eff% in this scenario?

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Question on bolded part: Where are you collecting the runnings from that drain?

If its into a separate container (to avoid recirc.) then you don't have a 2 vessel system anymore.

If its going back into the BK, then you are essentially recirculating.

Efficiency would be better in the first scenario, compared to the second.

I would basically take the sparge water and lay it on top of the mash slowly. So it would be wort at the bottom with the grains then lay fresh water ontop then once the mash tun is full of sparge water i would just start running off so the wort would drain then all the fresh water i put ontop would rinse the grain as it comes down and out. if that made sense?

Rivenin said:

I would basically take the sparge water and lay it on top of the mash slowly. So it would be wort at the bottom with the grains then lay fresh water ontop then once the mash tun is full of sparge water i would just start running off so the wort would drain then all the fresh water i put ontop would rinse the grain as it comes down and out. if that made sense?

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That's kind of what I had in mind. It would require a large enough mash tun to hold the full volume.

Rivenin said:

I would basically take the sparge water and lay it on top of the mash slowly. So it would be wort at the bottom with the grains then lay fresh water ontop then once the mash tun is full of sparge water i would just start running off so the wort would drain then all the fresh water i put ontop would rinse the grain as it comes down and out. if that made sense?

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Unless you are going to use a third vessel either as a HLT or a wort collection vessel this wont get you any better efficiency than recirculating your wort between the two vessels of your 2 vessel system.

I've seen pics of Demon's system and its sweet. He uses two burners so that he can do full volume mashes and heat and recirculate his mash (in his MT) at mashout thereby getting the best efficiency possible out of a 2 vessel system.

In my system, I'm using a igloo cooler as my MT. In order to get a decent efficiency I have to recirculate either directly into my HLT/BK or thru a herms coil in order to increase my wort temperature to get the best extraction in a two vessel system.

I dont think that ladelling hot water on top of your mash with the hopes of getting stratification will be effective. I think you either have to recirculate and raise your mash temp in some fashion or go to a third vessel and sparge.

P.S. Maybe Demon could post a pic of his system here ;-)

I cant speak for the others posting here, but my system is basically akin to a brew in a bag system but using a mash tun instead of a grain bag (if that makes sense).

BIABers recirculate and heat their wort in order to get the best extraction from their grains. I designed mine to do the same. This being said, the best efficiency I can hope for is the same as one would get from a BIAB system. Some might even argue that the best that could be hoped for is a little less efficiency than BIAB because you cant squeeze a MT like you can a grain bag.

But if you treat a 2 vessel system like a souped up BIAB system, you can realistically know what kind of efficiencies and limitations that you can expect from the system.

If I'm wrong about this, someone please correct me

geniz said:

P.S. Maybe Demon could post a pic of his system here ;-)

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Here ya go...

well i ended up trying it this weekend.
i hit 75% and 1.060 (actually above what i was planning )
i may get a false bottom for my other keggle and direct fire the tun. this is a fun setup actually and takes up way less space! i dig it.
i will have to get 2 weldless thermometers though, but thats fine with me

75% is great! Thanks for sharing.

Great results! Post pics if you have them

no pics at the moment i'll get some next time, just imagine this without the right keggle lol.



i know it doesn't help with other pictures with the sparging process, but i will try it again and get ya'll pictures.

Well i picked up the metal last night for the new brew stand so it looks like i'll have another thread coming up somewhat soon

If you're doing a big beer, mash full volume minus a gallon or two and sparge with that after you've drained the MT into BK. It'll bump your efficiency a decent amount on the big OG beers. I have a ~5gal pot I use to fetch my water for the brewday, so I just use that. No extra cleanup. Don't need to bother heating it up either.

iijakii said:

If you're doing a big beer, mash full volume minus a gallon or two and sparge with that after you've drained the MT into BK. It'll bump your efficiency a decent amount on the big OG beers. I have a ~5gal pot I use to fetch my water for the brewday, so I just use that. No extra cleanup. Don't need to bother heating it up either.

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The purist would say that's not two vessel brewing, but I find myself doing that at times too to improve efficiency.

It beats having to shell out for a larger footprint with another burner and maybe another pump.

Yeah, I get that *technically* it's not. But, whatever. Already have the pot there - or you could use your fermenter or something too. Not adding a vessel to the brewday, just making something multipurposeful .

awesome, thanks for the idea on that! i figure if it's a beer above 1070 i probably will do that
the other thing i also considered was the following. kind of what i had mentioned earlier in this thread.
mash with my normal 1.33qt/pp
vourlouf.
heat up strike water.
put something in the mashtun so the water can pour on it and not disturb the mash.
fill up the full amount of strike water in the mash tun above the mash (clean clear water)
sparge until i reach the first runnings (like a gallon or gallon and a half or so)
then recirc with the "clean and clear" water for maybe 5-10 minutes then run the rest off
it seems like this would be the closest i could get to a 3 vessel system with 2 instead of constantly recirculating.
i'll prolly try that when i brew next to see what exactly my numbers are and see if it helps at all, couldn't hurt

Based on your last post, this hybrid sparge should yield you the best efficiency.
Quick question? Is your tun big enough to hold 6 or so gallons of sparge water on top of your mash? If so, after vorlaufing, you could add all the sparge water carefully, as not to disturb your mash and then you could slowly, over an hour, drain your tun into your BK until you reach your preboil volume. That would be closer to an actual fly sparge and you would finish with a full amount of water ratio as you started with. This would work better for the higher gravity beers to increase your efficiency.
Hope this make sense.
Bull

Rivenin said:

awesome, thanks for the idea on that! i figure if it's a beer above 1070 i probably will do that
the other thing i also considered was the following. kind of what i had mentioned earlier in this thread.
mash with my normal 1.33qt/pp
vourlouf.
heat up strike water.
put something in the mashtun so the water can pour on it and not disturb the mash.
fill up the full amount of strike water in the mash tun above the mash (clean clear water)
sparge until i reach the first runnings (like a gallon or gallon and a half or so)
then recirc with the "clean and clear" water for maybe 5-10 minutes then run the rest off
it seems like this would be the closest i could get to a 3 vessel system with 2 instead of constantly recirculating.
i'll prolly try that when i brew next to see what exactly my numbers are and see if it helps at all, couldn't hurt

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If you're gonna do that, you'd probably be better off mashing at a "normal" ratio of 1.25 qt/lb, running this off into a fermenting bucket and then batch sparing.

But if you continue to get mid 70 efficiencies, I personally wouldn't change a thing.

My efficiencies are typically in the low 70s. I usually will adjust my recipe accordingly.

My problem with the system is varying efficiencies with varying gravities. Thought I'd switch back to a three vessel, but lately I've been doing two vessel and tweaking my technique

well now i have a few different things to try over the new few months! lol hell, experimentation is half the fun of this hobby.

this is how far i got tonight. ended up getting a piece of slag on my arm and got stuck, so i cooled it down, and by that point i felt how "good" my back was feeling lol.



top is almost fully welded, missing the front piece on the bottom.
tomorrow hopefully i will get the burners/pump/switch mounted.

i made it a bit higher then my other stand as well. so the lower level is sitting about 1' off the ground.

Oh, and yes, 6 gallons shouldn't be an issue at all, my cooler is 13 gallons and i'm going to get a false bottom for my 2nd keggle.

and plus if all else fails and i need to make a high grav OG beer, i can sit my cooler mash tun right ontop of the bk lol

almost all the way done, gonna brew a time or two to see if i need to switch anything, then grind, paint and call it done... i think i'm in love with this one more then the larger brother as well.

putting it through it's paces, FINALLY
however, i did pick up a false bottom, so the next brew day is going to be fun! and strictly 2 vessel.