Orange Cascade v2.0 Brewday has begun

I will post pics, and commentary here:

It is 16F outside... feels like 8F with the windchill... the garage is a balmy 45F! Time to brew!

TIME TO BREW!



FULL HLT


Heating the HLT

Orange/Cascade v2.0 Water Calculation (you cannot run this HERMS without this thing!!)


The Recipe:
Orange Pale Ale v2.0
Brew Target Statistics
Style American Pale Ale
Efficiency 82.00 %
Pre-boil Volume 7.40 gallons US
OG 1.068
IBU 41.9
Mash Ratio 2.0 qt/l
Post-boil Volume 5.30 gallons US
FG 1.018
SRM 10.6
Mash Time 80 min
Boil Time 90 min
Yeast S-04
ABV 5.1 %
Evaporation 1.4 gallons/hr
Attenuation 70.00 %
Water Profile 6 gal. Spring/5 gal. Distilled

Mash Schedule
alpha 155 F Mash in with 6.0 gallons US of water at 163.6 F
mashout 165.5 F Direct heat until mash reaches 165.5 F.
sparge 170 F Sparge with 3.1 gallons US at 170.0F to collect 7.4 gallons US

Fermentables
Marris Otter 9.5 lb 79.2 % 1.036/lb/gal 3 Mash
American Crystal 40L 1.5 lb 12.5 % 1.034/lb/gal 40 Mash
Vienna 1 lb 8.3 % 1.030/lb/gal 4 Mash
Totals: 12 pounds 100% 1.056 10.6

Misc
Orange peel 2 ounces Boil 10
Coriander 1 ounces Boil 10

Hops
Name Quantity Form Alpha Stage Time
Cascade 1 oz Leaf 7.4 FWH 90
Cascade 1 oz Pellet 7.8 Boil 10
Cascade 1 oz Pellet 7.8 Boil 5
Cascade 1 oz Pellet 7.8 Boil 1
Cascade 2 oz Pellet 7.8 Dry 0
Totals: 6 ounces 41.9 IBU

Carbonation
CO2 Volume Presure Serving Temp
2.5 11.25 psi 38.0F

Just about time to mash in...

I always use Buffer 5.2 in my mash... the MW crush also looks a little finer than B3's. On top of that I am also trying out a 2qt/lb mash to see if I get any apparent rise in eff.

I will be pumping over 6.0 gallons of 183F water to the MLT, to preheat and strike when it reaches 164F in the MLT as depicted on the MLT through the wall thermometer.


Orange/Cascade v2.0 grist

Transferred... the MLT soaked up 11F, so it is sitting at 172F... taking the lid off, adding my Buffer5.2 and wating a few minutes to reach 164F to mash in.

Added my final 1 gallon of water to my HLT, it is sitting at 158F ready for the recirc.

EDIT: One benefit to such a thin mash is that it is REALLY easy to get a nice mash in... breaking up dough balls is much easier in soup than it is in oatmeal. It is recirculating nicely at 155F, at a rate of about 1.5 gallons/min.

This is how we mash at CCB. The mash temp varies between 154.8 and 155.1.

HLT controller is set at 173F... ramping up to mashout now.

HLT set for Mashout


MLT at Mashout


BK ready to accept some SWEET wort!

This is how we fly sparge at CCB...

Grain bed never went below 166F

Wort actually cooled to 150F in the kettle, garage temp. 57F

Reached a rolling boil at 100% on the 5500W element. Dialed it back to 65% to maintain a nice strong boil.

Collected 7.4 gallons for the boil... the HLT was DRY and the MLT only contained ONE QUART of wort at a SG of 1.008!!! This is what happens when you nail down your water requirements

Nice pics and video.:rockin: Thanks

This system allows me to do A LOT of messing around while brewing. So, I have been able to keep up easily posting as I brew.

Thanks!

Great job, I like to see the progress. Now if there was only a way to smell it too

Id like to say that I am 15 miuntes from "flame out" but... I guess I am 15 minutes from "cutting the current"!

Smells wonderful!

Yo...
I just kegged a batch of OC yesterday. Ive been using Great Western 2 row though, maris otter is a C note for 50 lbs. Ill stick with good ol American 2 row at 47 bucks a 50lb bag. Ive got yet another batch in the primary, this time, i used an oz of sweet orange, and an oz of the bitter. My prior 2 batches were all bitter so I think this will put a twist on it a bit. We will see. I also found that running my coriander through the barley crusher just perfectly cracks open the hulls without pulverizing anything.
Your system appears to be doing everything you hoped it would. You can almost put in on 'auto-pilot' (cheap intended pilots joke). Ill try to watch the movies tonight. If i watch them at work a crowd forms and then the boss starts giving me crap...about not having dropped off any homebrew lately
The belgium wheat w/ hibiscus flowers turned out well, the wife and all her girlyfriends love it.
Fly safe amigo!

Thanks MEDO... I am finishing up the chilling... the yeast is rehydrating in some warm 1.008 wort.

I have my HERMS system performing a wash with some PBW, I will then run a rinse with my Starsan when I am finished sanitizing my carboy and airlock

Another one is almost in the books...

Um... that is 85% eff.

15% higher than on ANY other brew on this system in the past.

The Pol said:

Um... that is 85% eff.

15% higher than on ANY other brew on this system in the past.

Click to expand...

Sweet. What more can I say.

Guess I can start buying less grain.

I used a 2qt/lb mash and had a noticeably better crush than I used to get from B3. 15% is a lot. I took two samples, it was mixed well, and it was the proper temp....

Sweet, I guess this batch will pack more of a punch. I just ordered a pound of cascades and already have 6oz for a batch of this sweet nectar.

The only thing is that my setup is just not as cool as yours

Yeah, I can use a full 1.5 pounds less MO and still hit my target of 1.056 on this brew.

I am guessing it was a combination of the crush, and perhaps a better extract with the thinner mash. Like I said, I have NEVER gotten anything other than 70% on the nose with this HERMS until today.

I used 40L instead of the 10L... the wort is much darker. I will get some pics when I have it in the glass in about 4 weeks. I wanted some more residual sweetness, looks like I will have A LOT more since I overshot my OG by 12 points

On my next brew I am going to mash at 2qt/lb and plan for 80% eff. I dont want to immediately plan for 85% again... it will be much closer than planning for 70% and getting 85%!

I was really happy with the brew day. The rig ran as planned, all of the temps and calculations were right on (matched the spreadheets). The mash temp varied between 154.8 and 155.1 during the 60 minute mash.

No leaks, no drips, the rig and myself came out of the day clean and dry. I REALLY do like boiling with electric. 65% seemed to maintain a very nice boil, and met my previous boil off rate. It is so quiet... you can walk into the garage and it is almost frightening not hearing ANYTHING while it is boiling away.

I saved about 3 gallons of the hot IC exhaust water and mixed it with some PBW to pump through the rig during the cooling of the wort. I then drained this and dumped a couple gallons of StarSan from my clean carboy into the system and rinsed it out.

I will probably not be brewing again until the end of Feb... or the first of March. Thanks for following along.

I have an oatmeal stout ready to go, even though I was going to try to get it done this week I don't think it will be possible. I am headed to the allgash in norther maine for an icefishing trip, and yes a 5 gallon corni will be tagging along. That being said I am going to try the 2qt/lb ratio to see what I get for efficiency. With the pump set up the thinner mash means fewer headaches, and if it means better efficiency I am in. Also that OC seems like it would be tasty on a warm summer day!!!!!

I am betting that a thinner mash gave you most of your extra efficiency. I am going to build a bigger MLT so that I can mash up to 2 qt/lb if I want.
Nice set up and great vids!

nice set-up. seems overwhelming to me. i just moved to all grain. you have alot of tubes and pumps and electrical stuff. does it make it that much easier and does it make your beer taste better? thanks for posting that. i know that took some effort!

blackwaterbrewer said:

nice set-up. seems overwhelming to me. i just moved to all grain. you have alot of tubes and pumps and electrical stuff. does it make it that much easier and does it make your beer taste better? thanks for posting that. i know that took some effort!

Click to expand...

The nice thing about this system is that no matter what stage you are at... all you have to do is swap ONE hose to go from striking, to mashing, to sparging... it is really a simple machine.

All of the electrical stuff is simply because it is a HERMS, and you have to control the temps precisely to reap the benefit of a HERMS.

It really does make brewing pretty easy... I never miss a strike temp, mashout temp or anything of that sort. It does the temp monitoring and tweaking, so I can spend the day with my daughter, or posting brewing pics and vids for yall.

Is the beer better, not really, is it more consistent? Most definately... If I use the same recipe, I can repeat it over and over with little or no variaion since I am assured that my temps and times will be the same each time. My mash temp on this day varied from 154.8 - 155.1F

By the time I sparge, the wort is as clear as BMC... recirculation really does wonders for wort clarity and mash uniformity (temps).

I started brewing almost 4 years ago, I started with all grain... this has been an ongoing evolution into all electric brewing. I wanted to go all electric so that I could safely brew indoors in the cold months, also, so that I did not have to rely on propane to heat my water, or boil. Also, the resulting education that I have recieved just by engineering the Brew Beast v2.0 will be invaluable.

I like my toys... thus, the Brew Beast v2.0

Hey Pol, your eff. will get even better the next time around. I have a RIMS set up and my first brew was in the mid 80's for eff. percentage. The second time around went even smoother and the process was more refined. My eff. went up to 90+ percent. I am fairly certain that you will have the same experience. Enjoy your new system. It is a thing of beauty, now, can you brew with it? LOL. Enjoy. S.

Well I have already done about 8 batches on my HERMS... the only change this time was the E-Keggle. Each of the previous brews was 70%... this one I did a 2qt/lb mash and I blew past 80%.

I cannot imagine it going up again, unless I change my process again.

The Pol said:

Well I have already done about 8 batches on my HERMS... the only change this time was the E-Keggle. Each of the previous brews was 70%... this one I did a 2qt/lb mash and I blew past 80%.

I cannot imagine it going up again, unless I change my process again.

Click to expand...

HMM... That is interesting. I guess that surprises me a little. O' well, best of luck anyway. You will never go back, now that you have the control.

I have a question though. How fast does your temperature ramp with your HERMS set up? Just curious. S

Depends on what you mean by ramp?

Ramping the HLT and MLT at the SAME time?

OR

Ramping the MLT up when the HLT is already heated (as in a step mash)

My mashout generally runs for 20 minutes (heating the HLT and MLT concurrently)

Step mashing occurs much quicker as the HLT is already at the STEP temp, all I have to do is bring up the MLT temp. The time is a function of the volume in the MLT... how many pounds of grain? how thick or thin is the mash?

Great thread!

Thanks for sharing.

The Pol said:

Depends on what you mean by ramp?

Ramping the HLT and MLT at the SAME time?

OR

Ramping the MLT up when the HLT is already heated (as in a step mash)

My mashout generally runs for 20 minutes (heating the HLT and MLT concurrently)

Step mashing occurs much quicker as the HLT is already at the STEP temp, all I have to do is bring up the MLT temp. The time is a function of the volume in the MLT... how many pounds of grain? how thick or thin is the mash?

Click to expand...

I guess I was looking for an average, I realize that the thermal mass in the MLT changes from batch to batch. To be more specific though, how fast does your set up ramp when the HLT is at step temp. for step mashing?
S.

Never done it... but I will be doing it on my Hugh Heffe later this spring...

I mean all the fastest that I can, without overheating my mash water in the return line, is already having the HLT up to temp, which I can easily do. Then it will be a matter of how quickly I can exchage the heat. The limiting factor will not be the heating element, but how quickly I can exchange heat in the coil and MLT. Keeping the MLT volume to a minimum (thicker mash) will be key.

It will be an experiment that is for sure.

Granted, I almost never do step mashes... I think I have done two in 4 years of AG brewing.

I hear ya. I used to do a lot of step mashes, I have since stopped. I infusion mash, with a mash out, unless I am doing a wheat beer, or I'm testing new equipment. I have experienced no difference in taste between the two, so far. We will see when I get some of the results back from competition. The feed back is always good. It lets you know you are going in the right direction. S.

Just in case I DID create a second software program that will compute step mashing temps, quantities and heating times for my specific HERMS.

I have one that I use for my single infusion mashes, now I have one that will Allow me to infuse for my protien rest.
Heat the second step water in the HLT during the protien rest
Infuse again to meet my alpha rest
Computes the water volume to add to my HLT to cool it to recirc temp so that I can immediately begin the recirc for the alpha rest

IT IS VERY COMPLEX... but easy for the brewer to use.

Here is how it would work on my 5 gallon batch of Hugh Heffe....
Brewer plugs in the stuff at the top... it spits out the stuff at the bottom.

Well that kicks @ss, Pol. I wish I could stir that recipe up on such a nice system!

Congrats on the build, it's obviously working out perfectly.

Working well... thanks for the recipe, though I blew the OG to hell!

I don't know when the last time you bought your grain from MW was, but in the past couple months they installed a new commercial/industrial grain mill. I have my own mill so I can not say if this has caused a great increase in effciencies, but it would be my guess that it has.

Mr. Pol:

Those are some slick spreadsheets and hardware.

Cheers

Thanks, this last spreadheet was tricky... especially on 4 hours of sleep, and then being awake again for 18 hours

But I assure you it works!

The Pol said:

Working well... thanks for the recipe, though I blew the OG to hell!

Click to expand...

Not a bad problem to have! You can call it an Imperial Pale Ale?

Yes, it is more than a little out of style for an APA now

Salute'
Theres nothing wrong with the OG. Thats where all my OCs have landed so far. 1.065ish me thinks. I prefer to keep by beers between 1.050-1.070 for the most part. And that was with Great American 2 row. You know I went with 60L this time. You just went with 40. I think both will be a good addition to the lighter 20 we were using. My in the keg batch has just done its 2 days@30psi, I reduced it to 10ish this morning. Might give it a try tonight just to see how its doing. The currently fementing batch has the 40L and the 2 different orange peels, sweet and bitter. Im curious how that one is going to turn out.
Hows that one your tapped into doing? Did it turn out as well as you anticipated?
The wife is loving that hibiscus laced belgium blonde wheat. But now she wants the stone IPA clone again. It did turn out rather well.
Since Im actually out of drinkable homebrew, I grabbed some of Descutes Buzzsaw Brown. Took drinking 3 to grow on me, its like a weak porter. But it will do till the CO is ready in a couple days.
Still didnt get to watch your videos yet. Tonight i hope, as we are bracing for a new batch of 40-50 below coming in a couple days....
So, now, what? You will never sit still after this, what will you invent for the brewer next? Im glad your rig worked out as well as it did. I think youve really inspired otherwise leary folks, by the videos themselves. Hands on gives folks a better idea sometimes then the written word. Good job buddy.
And a great day to all!

Medo, always a pleasure to hear from you chilly friend. I am pleased with the OG and the eff. on this last brew, but it is a LITTLE out of style now for an APA... maybe as someone said, an Imperial APA.
This stuff is much darker with the 40L... I will get a pic of it in the fermentor today after my current experiment it complete. I am doing a Marris Otter Bread, complete with a MO mini mash that goes directly into the dough! I started a thread for that today with pics.
My orignal recipe O/C APA is going quite well on draft! I really enjoy it, it will be finished well before I finish up my Spiced Holiday Ale, which is also a winner, but the holidays are over!
Glad to hear that the ol lady is enjoying your wares... mine only has a taste for BMC... soh well, more HB for me eh? As for me, I have no plans yet for any other inventions, but will be posting more vids and such with upcoming brews. I am gald that I can inspire and answer Q's for some who may have been lurking, contemplating systems similar to my own. It really is a nice beast to brew on... the ONLY thing that I dont like, is there is no heat loss, so it does not warm my garage much when I brew!
The ONLY thing I have going on currently is a writing gig for a HB website, providing content and helping with calculators and such... I spend more time with HB than I do at my "day job".

Pol