My first All grain and BrewTroller maiden voyage

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jcdillin

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Location
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So this weekend I was able to finally brew a batch of beer on the new system. So not only was this my first all-grain but it was also the first brew session with the BrewTroller. It did a great job and ran perfectly the whole time. I figured I would do something easy so I brewed a Centennial Blonde, should be interesting because the last batch I made was extract so i'm curious to see if it's any better.

The Setup

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Pre-heating everything while I milled the grain. It was up to temp in 1 hour

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Makeshift project box

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Shot of the quick disconnects and the awesome stainless probes made for me by Derrin

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Mmmm, grains

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My high tech sparge arm/ring

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Another shot in case you want to build one yourself :)

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Maintaining the temps very very well

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First draining into the kettle

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Still going into the kettle

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Setup to drain into the kettle

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Cleaning up while waiting for the wort to start boiling

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Carboy all ready

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Boiling

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Therminator all setup, will pump boiling wort through it sanitize it

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Time left in boil

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Hop additions

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Filling the carboy

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Holy fricken monkey this thing is out of control it's a 5 gallon batch in a 6 gallon carboy and its going like there is no tomorrow. Its only a 4%abv beer.

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Overall it was a great session I missed my OG by a bit but I was able to boil it a bit longer and brought it to the correct point level. The brewtroller preformed flawlessly. The only thing I need to do is figure out the PID settings because I kept overshooting the HLT temp by 2 degrees. The pump kept it in check and my mash stayed within 1 degree the whole time.
 
That is amazing, especially for your first all grain. I've never heard of someone jumping from extract to all grain with temp controlled 3 keggle system. You are impressive.
 
Thanks, a lot of planning went into this system i've been working on it for 6 months.
 
Very impressive. I've got 2 all-grains under my belt, but nowhere near the system you have.
 
Well I figured if I am going to build the all grain system I myaswell go all the way. No reason to buy a cooler system and just replace it.
 
Nice setup.

I lived in Hollywood Beach,Polk St, and then had a condo in Mystic Point. I miss it, but your summers are hot!
 
Thanks!

Nice, I lived in hollywood off park rd for 2 years. Summers are too hot, I wish the weather was like this all year round.
 
:drunk: What is this digital contraption from the future!?!?! That is friggin amazing!!! Seriously... I have never heard of that before and am insanely jealous. Does is automatically maintain temps for you? Is this something you built and designed or something you can purchase? You need to send those pics into BYO magazine. That is a sweeeeeet setup sir! Prost!:mug:
 
heh heh, nothing special, it's just a dinner plate :D

Did you just leave the lid off your MT the whole time you mashed? You have a HERMS setup in your HLT right? Then you do a continuous mash pulling the wort from the bottom of the MT, thru the HLT then back to the top of the mash and onto your "special made" :) plate?
 
Nope, I keep the MLT covered during the entire mash process.

Yeah I have a copper HERMS coil in my HLT, you can see pictures of it in my build thread.

Mine does not recirculate continuously, only when the mash temp drops the BrewTroller turns the pump on and recirculates until the mash comes up to temp. But I am drawing the wort out of the bottom of the keg and then pumping it through the hex coil and then back onto my plate ;)

I've considered trying a different program and only heating my HLT to the temp that I want to maintain the MLT at and then recirculating continuously. But with a 1650W element it does take a good bit of time to ramp up the temps. So my mashout would add another hour to the process at the current rate, maybe after I upgrade to 220v.

Even though i've made 4 batches so far using my current method and it always comes out awesome and I usually end up in the high 70's for eff.
 
Great system! You can tell you really thought things out first. You should've seen the ghetto setup I had when I started.
 
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