ILBMF
Well-Known Member
I've been doing partial mash brews for quite some time now and decided to take the all grain plunge. My first batch was my hop-bursted Simcoe IPA recipe. I ended up with a starting gravity of 1.071 using 14 lbs of pale 2 row.
How's that stack up for efficiency?? I took a 10 gallon Rubbermade cooler, installed a Parker ball valve...took a piece of 3/8'' thick plexiglass and cut it round to fit the cooler snugly and drilled literally thousands of 3/32'' holes in the plexiglass (yeah, I know). I used some West Systems epoxy to attach 4 pvc pipe legs to the plexi false bottom to get it up over the ball valve opening and also made a plexiglass handle for easy retrieval of the false bottom. This set up would have allowed the sparge water to drain at any speed I chose from just a few minutes to much longer. I had to crack the ball valve slightly to keep the flow rate way down. I took a fine screen bag and attached it to the end of the sparge hose to collect any loose grains which ended up being only a finger or two. This system seems to work well.
I let the sparging process go for a good hour and 20 minutes and still was barely tasting a very slight sweetness to the sparge water as I reached the 6 gallon mark which I expect is normal? I noticed a different style of foam on top of the boil compared to the partial mash brews with DME and it also seems the fermenting wort has a lighter color than the previous brews.
How's that stack up for efficiency?? I took a 10 gallon Rubbermade cooler, installed a Parker ball valve...took a piece of 3/8'' thick plexiglass and cut it round to fit the cooler snugly and drilled literally thousands of 3/32'' holes in the plexiglass (yeah, I know). I used some West Systems epoxy to attach 4 pvc pipe legs to the plexi false bottom to get it up over the ball valve opening and also made a plexiglass handle for easy retrieval of the false bottom. This set up would have allowed the sparge water to drain at any speed I chose from just a few minutes to much longer. I had to crack the ball valve slightly to keep the flow rate way down. I took a fine screen bag and attached it to the end of the sparge hose to collect any loose grains which ended up being only a finger or two. This system seems to work well.
I let the sparging process go for a good hour and 20 minutes and still was barely tasting a very slight sweetness to the sparge water as I reached the 6 gallon mark which I expect is normal? I noticed a different style of foam on top of the boil compared to the partial mash brews with DME and it also seems the fermenting wort has a lighter color than the previous brews.