15 Gallon SMaSH
 

I've been waiting for the weather to get cooler so that i could use the conical i bought early this year. Brewed with some friends yesterday and we finally have our first 15 gallon batch on the way!

Recipe:
30 lbs Vienna Malt (mash at 148-150°F)
2.5 oz of Northern Brewer (7% AA) @ 60 min
2 oz of Northern Brewer (7% AA) @ 20 min
2 oz of Northern Brewer (7% AA) @ flameout
3 packs of Nottingham yeast

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First time i've used pH stabilizer in a brew.

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Strike water ready at 160°F for mash in. We actually had to stir it for a while to get it down...only lost about 7°F when adding the grains.

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stirring the grains in, we had zero head room. perfect.

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After we hit temp at 150°F, we covered and let it sit for about an hour and a half, stirring a few times. It dropped 2°F on the thermometer in this time which is what i expected. we want it nice and dry.

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I used this time to measure out my 80qt pot. filled the pot in increments and i notched an old plastic stirring rod i had. can't really see the notches in the picture, but it worked great. used the water for sanitization and laundry.

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vorlaufing we did the old fashioned way. we recirculated the mash with my buddy's pump and then used an in-line filter to transfer.

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we used our "splash-sparge" technique, which is basically just setting the sparge water to run equal to the run-off so there is no oxidation of the wort. it pours slowly on to a piece of aluminum foil. no need for all that fly sparge nonsense. bad picture, just clipped the hose up underneath the lid.

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pumping the sparge water.

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running off the wort.

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here's 17 gallons boiling. we did this on a regular ole bayou burner. we started heat as soon as the wort was running. if you don't keep the heat on it the whole time, it's difficult to keep that volume boiling, but we didn't have too much trouble this time around. i do have better burners, but not with this stand.

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the yeast we rehydrated with some of the runnings and stuck it on a stir plate to wake those suckers up. not sure if this is usually advised, but it seemed to work great.

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cooling the wort. we used both of our copper coils, one from the sink and one from the outside line. for the line with the quick disconnects, we used "mini-chill"...a small coil we set in ice, prechilling the water. it only took 30 minutes to cool.

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draining the wort.

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pumping it back up to the conical. we spilled a little water when cleaning, but don't worry...the wort was safe ;)

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awesome brew day. only took us 6 hours (hell, 5 gallons usually take 5.) we're going to use this setup to brew tried and true batches...every two weeks.

this setup is intended to eventually be a 15 gallon "pilot setup" that we can do test brews on for bigger batches, ultimately trying to imitate a commercial brewery. the best part about this session is that we got 90% efficiency. working as a team, taking care with all the steps and brewing on a larger scale accomplished this.

i was a little worried about temperature. it gets pretty cool in the basement, but fermentation often ramps things up and i was concerned that 15 gallons would be a bitch to cool down. my friend just checked it out, tho, and he said it's fermenting at 54°F.

awesome.

:rockin:
:mug:

Awesome. Thanks!

Impressive. Nicely done.

Nice beer porn...

sweet. when does the brewpub open?

hopefully in a few years :mug: