Revised 2-vessel system

I decided to bling-up my 2-vessel experiment https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f235/reverse-flow-2-tier-2-vessel-system-407244/ and replaced the plastic bucket and BIAB bag with a stainless steel kettle and stainless filters and copper fittings.

This is an almost fully automated system. It is designed to start unattended, heat strike water, mash-in, mash, and sparge (if doing full volume no-sparge) and then wait for me to hit OK and kick off the boil.

Here is the system ready for brewing. The wort flows from the electric brew kettle through the bottom of mash tun, up through the grains and returns back to the brew kettle through a center stand pipe.



Here is the bottom of the mash tun. The wort enters through the fitting on the right and returns through the center copper fitting.


A false bottom is added (this came with the turkey fryer that I'm using as the mash tun).


A filter screen made from a fry pan spatter screen is added. The false bottom is held in place with the copper stand pipe, which is screwed in place.


Here the grains are added. The stand pipe can be changed depending upon the size of the grain bill. My initial stand pipe is just long enough for the 13 lbs of grain in this Brewer's Best BIAB IPA kit.


Here the top filter plate is installed and pined in place with a homemade stainless steel safety pin.


Here is the start of the mash-in


Here the force of the flow was enough to break the silver soldered copper fitting at the center of the stainless filter. I was using a spatter screen beneath the top filter plate. At this point I removed it and decided it was not necessary. The safety pin held the filter in place throughout the rest of the
mash.


Here is a modified top filter with a silver brazed stainless steel washer reinforcement.

I like it. Have you been able to measure your efficiency?

I'm doing something similar on a little bigger scale:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f170/55-gal-16500-watt-rims-braumeister-ish-brewery-build-450017/

Instead of the stand pipe, I have an overflow that dumps it back into the "boil kettle".

I have a 300 micron screen on the top and bottom. The idea is I could possibly use the vessel as a hop spider or I can get a finer mill and better efficiency.

Looks great!

I calculated 73%. I got 1.063 OG into the fermenter with 5.3 gal of wort from 13 lbs of grain.
I did do a 1.5 gallon batch sparge with hot tap water to reach my target boil volume.

Do you sparge? And how do you drain the last wort from the mashing tun?

I can sparge by up pumping an stopping when I hit final boil volume or lowest SG. I gravity drain the grain vessel and then dump the spent grain.

This is all theoretical as I haven't done more than tests on the system.

I'm working on the brewery building for a micro so the equipment has been set aside for now. Maybe a month or so I will be back to brewing.

I did batch sparge on my first batch. Just dump water over the top of the filter.

When the mash is over the wort returns to the brew kettle through the pump which is now turned off. It doesn't return through the stand pipe at this point. There is not much wort left in the mash tun after it drains. And the last little bit can be drained by tipping.

How did you fixate the center stand pipe? How did you make it leak free?

There is a 1" copper male pipe fitting that is silver soldered to the bottom of the mash tun. It is also reinforced with a copper washer that is silver soldered to the bottom side of the mash tun.
The stand pipe has a copper female pipe fitting that threads into place. The female fitting also holds the bottom filter plate in place.

Hello HBT...

I built a similar brewing system some weeks ago and it´s working great, great design mdwilson!
I´m not using any fine mesh filters with the top/bottom filters like Braumeister does but instead I´m using Bazooka screen on the inlet/outlet. The top/bottom filters are 1.5mm thick with 3mm holes, but I would recommend 2mm thick steel for the filters as they bend a little during the first 5 minutes of the mash..
This is a completely automated brewing system controlled with a Siemens PLC (s7-1200) and a SCADA system on my labtop (total overkill I know ..
Here is a link where you can see some pics of the setup and a short video during mash in. Unfortunately the text is in icelandic, use google translate..

http://fagun.is/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=3506

Best regards from Iceland,
Raggi