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orangehero · 02-14-2013, 10:01 PM

Now you need to wire the lights to flash to the bubbling of the airlock.

**MaxOut** · 02-14-2013, 10:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ProjectOrion

Love the new additions. Despite the incredible stuff you've done in that brewery I think one the best lessons has been this: befriend an HVAC guy. Guess I'll be adding inoperable commercial fridges to my craigslist feeds, and start inviting my friend's step brother (who happens to have just graduated HVAC tech school..) over more often.

And that hop spider looks really promising, and even better, advances towards everything possible being stainless! Let us know how it works out.

Your right, my HVAC buddy has really helped me out and has proven to be a great friend as well. I'm glad he likes home brew!

**MaxOut** · 02-14-2013, 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by orangehero

Now you need to wire the lights to flash to the bubbling of the airlock.

:-)

**MaxOut** · 02-15-2013, 08:35 AM

Here is a couple shots of the new lids Glacier Tanks made for me . I had them add a 4" Tri-clamp to the center and moved the 11/2" to the outside. I was planning on using an immersion coil through the center but now they are for dry hopping and knocking out.

ProjectOrion · 02-27-2013, 08:07 PM

So how did that giant hop spider work out? I normally don't use whole hops but I was thinking something like that might be one the better solutions to help reduce the headache involved for hop heavy beers...

**MaxOut** · 02-27-2013, 08:50 PM

I will let you know tomorrow. I mainly use pellet hops. I'm hoping the hop spider will perform we'll for both The filter is 300 micron so it is tight enough for pellets. I recirculate during boil and I should get good utilization. Doing a BBL tomorrow so this will be the trial run. I've got my fingers crossed..

**MaxOut** · 03-06-2013, 10:59 AM

Well I brewed 45 gallons last week and put the hop filter to the test. It was a modestly hopped beer and I had mixed results. First I decided to recirculate the entire brew and this caused the filter to be compacted with hops. It filtered too well and when it came time to cool I could not get the filter to drain. The wort in the center was 6" higher level then the wort surrounding the filter. This also made it difficult to determine the post boil volume and due to the constant recirculating I boiled off an extra 6 gallons!!! Needless to say my OG was high and I didn't have any distilled water to add and correct it. It was a new recipe and I ended up on the high side of my estimate OG but still in range. I also adjusted the gap on my Monster Mill as it is starting to wear the bushings causing the gap to widen. This adjustment was well overdue and I attribute this adjustment to a surprising 10% increase in efficiency to 85%. I eventually got the filer to drain but took nearly 30 min. Once the filter drained and the kettle was empty I was very pleased with the overall results. There was literally less than a shot glass of hop residue that made it past the filter! It was the cleanest I've seen my BK after a big brew. I didn't even whirlpool. This is what I love about this hobby that every time is a learning experience and keeps me interested.

Lessons learned-

Do not recirculate the entire boil just the last 15 min to sterilize the chiller, oxygen injection and associated transfer tubing.
Keep distilled water on hand to make post boil adjustments
Adjust recipe for new efficiency

All in all the brew day was a success and I got a chance to run my BCS automation through it's new processes and utilize/tweak some of the advanced automation I added recently. The 1.5BBL system has constantly evolved and I have been tweaking my equipment and processes nearly every brew. I recently added another BCS and dedicated it to my conicals and their perspective chambers. This freed up some In/Out's on the BrewStation BCS allowing me to automated the 1.5BBL boil kettle and mash tun. The mash was a total success and I nailed and held my temps perfectly. I'm finally at a point with the current configuration that I am satisfied and should only need to make little adjustments from here on out. Now I can focus more on recipe creation and less on system functionality. I plan on two more brews in the next week and should give me the pipeline I want to get through the summer!

AVLbrewing · 03-06-2013, 12:05 PM

Sounds like you are getting it all dialed in! What did you brew btw?

**MaxOut** · 03-06-2013, 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AVLbrewing

Sounds like you are getting it all dialed in! What did you brew btw?

I brewed one of my house recipe's called Hop on Blonde. Hop on Blonde has only been the same recipe a few times, started as a light lager and is now fermenting with ale yeast. Hop on Blonde like my brewery has been evolving and I’m trying to get it dialed in. I originally created this recipe for my wife to drink because she like’s light beers with lower alcohol content (she is a blonde in case you are wondering

). I have not been 100% happy with it and have been trying to dial it in. I have the grain profile I like down but with this batch I plan on experimenting with multiple dry hop profiles when I transfer to the kegs and hopefully will settle on a permanent "Hop on Blonde". Hop on Blonde is a dry beer with light body, complex fruity hop profile, has a crisp clean lager finish and a little high level CO2 bite. My intention this brew was to make it a little lighter but I ended up on the high side of my gravity due to the extra boil off and gained efficiency. It’s a work in progress for sure. I will post the recipe when I get it dialed in.

**Bensiff** · 03-31-2013, 04:57 PM

How is that stainless filter/strainer from glacier doing for you? I see you are working on kettle filtration for the hops, so is it something that you would only used after the bulk of the material is already seperated. My thought is to go post whirlpool to the glacier strainer to a plate chiller for my application...so what I am really getting at, do you think that would work or do you thinkthe strainer might clog during transfer?