Fuming - About Ready to Hang it Up

[Gytaryst]

I love the sight glass on my BK. I use it to steer the boil cranking heat up or down in order to arrive at desired volume. Obviously you have reasons for not including it but I suggest reconsidering.

Mostly I just never thought it was that necessary. I measure the wort going into the BK so I know (accurately) what the starting volume is. All of my fermentation vessels are marked so I know (accurately) how much I'm taking out.

Inside the BK I always have hop bags, hop strainers, and during the last 15 minutes of the boil, an immersion chiller. All of those would effect the level in a sight glass to one degree or another, based on a whole host of variables. Temperature effects the level in the site glass. When the wort is at a rolling boil the level is bouncing up and down, so determining a volume is basically just eyeballing and guessing.

To me a sight glass on the BK was an added expense and more work, producing more areas for bacteria to possibly take hold, more cleaning and sanitizing issues, more possibility of leaks, more possibility of something going wrong to screw up a brew day. If the sight glass on my BK broke or cracked on brew day, I'd be screwed. If there is no sight glass on the BK, it's a safe bet that will never happen.

I didn't add dial thermometers to any of my keggles for pretty much the same reason. Extra expense, extyra work, more places for bacteria to take hold, more things to go wrong, and unless you want to spend a fortune, most of those analog dial thermometers aren't that accurate to begin with. I have several digital instant read thermopens, remote probe and one 12" dial thermometer. Granted, I can't just walk up to the keg and see a temperature, I have to actually stick a thermometer in . . . but it's never been enough of an inconvenience to counter all the negative aspects.

It is embarrassing when I take pictures because they don't have all the bells and whistles like everyone else's . . . but with counceling, I'm learning to live with that.

 

[doug293cz]

I have been having similar issues. Not sure when it started to be honest as I only brew every couple of months (but have been at it long enough). I brewed an imperial stout last weekend expecting an OG of ~1.090, so imagine my surprise when my pre boil was 1.060! Not to imperial.

I have gone back after the fact and found that the BSII style FG seems to be misreporting. Below BSII says my OG should be 1.090 based on the grain bill. I never really looked at the estimated pre-boil gravity field before looking into this issue, but note it says 1.060 (what I actually achieved on brew day). My boil off rate is set to 8L/h (~2 gallons) so fairly low. Now how does BSII expect it to raise 1.030 points of gravity with an hour boil?!?

I decided to check further and downloaded a free brew software called brew target. I entered everything exactly the same as my equipment profile in BSII but got an expected OG of 1.060 for the same grain bill! At least it is reporting much closer to what I am experiencing.

Next brew day I will be using both software's to see if I can't sort things out and lock in my target.

The only way BeerSmith's numbers make any sense is if it is assuming a 2 hour boil at 10.5 L/hr boil off rate (21 L total boil off.) OG = Pre-boil SG * Pre-boil Vol / Post-boil Vol

1.090 = 1.061 * 65 L/ 44 L​

Also Brewhouse Eff = Mash Eff * Fermenter Vol / Post-boil Vol

70% = 73.3% * 42 L / 44 L​

At top of page Total Efficiency is given as 70% and Estimated Mash Efficiency is 73.3%, and Batch Size (fermenter vol) is 42 L.

Brew on

 

[eric19312]

Mostly I just never thought it was that necessary. I measure the wort going into the BK so I know (accurately) what the starting volume is. All of my fermentation vessels are marked so I know (accurately) how much I'm taking out.

Inside the BK I always have hop bags, hop strainers, and during the last 15 minutes of the boil, an immersion chiller. All of those would effect the level in a sight glass to one degree or another, based on a whole host of variables. Temperature effects the level in the site glass. When the wort is at a rolling boil the level is bouncing up and down, so determining a volume is basically just eyeballing and guessing.

To me a sight glass on the BK was an added expense and more work, producing more areas for bacteria to possibly take hold, more cleaning and sanitizing issues, more possibility of leaks, more possibility of something going wrong to screw up a brew day. If the sight glass on my BK broke or cracked on brew day, I'd be screwed. If there is no sight glass on the BK, it's a safe bet that will never happen.

I didn't add dial thermometers to any of my keggles for pretty much the same reason. Extra expense, extyra work, more places for bacteria to take hold, more things to go wrong, and unless you want to spend a fortune, most of those analog dial thermometers aren't that accurate to begin with. I have several digital instant read thermopens, remote probe and one 12" dial thermometer. Granted, I can't just walk up to the keg and see a temperature, I have to actually stick a thermometer in . . . but it's never been enough of an inconvenience to counter all the negative aspects.

It is embarrassing when I take pictures because they don't have all the bells and whistles like everyone else's . . . but with counceling, I'm learning to live with that.

Hey fair enough and did not mean to look like I was trying to shame you into ponying up the dollars for the sight glass. While acknowledging it is nice piece of bling I do consider my sight glass a necessary part of the BK. Did the measured stick for a couple years and just never going back there agains. As for your objections...
- I don't use hop bags or strainers
- I note boil volume before dropping in my IC to know about where I am and after I remove the IC for the number I record in BS.
- the level in the sight glass is remarkably stable if you add a heat shield (I know, more bling). I'd think the issue would be much more of a problem trying to use the kettle etchings Blichmann uses in its Anvil kettles instead of the sight glass.
- a broken sight glass could be cataclysmic during a brew day. I believe a cracked sight glass would make it through one more batch with a quick application of duct tape. But remember these aren't really glass anymore and so far the broken glass thing just doesn't seem to happen to me
- I have a pipe cleaner for cleaning and don't worry about sanitizing this or any other equipment on the hot side of my brewery.

I also saved the $ and skipped the thermometer in the BK. I'm somewhat sorry about that as I find it annoying to have to keep a probe thermometer sanitized during chilling. Had an inline LCD with an alarm for a while but it was not very reliable and now I just measure by hand but it is annoying and I worry about repeatedly taking lid of kettle and probing sanitized or not.

Last point in favor of the sight glass you you mention you measure accurately wort going into the kettle. I follow what you are doing, if it was me I'm sure I would lose count. Much easier to just set the autosparge and flow rate and come back and shut it down when I reach target volume.

 

[Gytaryst]

Hey fair enough and did not mean to look like I was trying to shame you into ponying up the dollars for the sight glass. While acknowledging it is nice piece of bling I do consider my sight glass a necessary part of the BK. Did the measured stick for a couple years and just never going back there agains. As for your objections...
- I don't use hop bags or strainers
- I note boil volume before dropping in my IC to know about where I am and after I remove the IC for the number I record in BS.
- the level in the sight glass is remarkably stable if you add a heat shield (I know, more bling). I'd think the issue would be much more of a problem trying to use the kettle etchings Blichmann uses in its Anvil kettles instead of the sight glass.
- a broken sight glass could be cataclysmic during a brew day. I believe a cracked sight glass would make it through one more batch with a quick application of duct tape. But remember these aren't really glass anymore and so far the broken glass thing just doesn't seem to happen to me
- I have a pipe cleaner for cleaning and don't worry about sanitizing this or any other equipment on the hot side of my brewery.

I also saved the $ and skipped the thermometer in the BK. I'm somewhat sorry about that as I find it annoying to have to keep a probe thermometer sanitized during chilling. Had an inline LCD with an alarm for a while but it was not very reliable and now I just measure by hand but it is annoying and I worry about repeatedly taking lid of kettle and probing sanitized or not.

Last point in favor of the sight glass you you mention you measure accurately wort going into the kettle. I follow what you are doing, if it was me I'm sure I would lose count. Much easier to just set the autosparge and flow rate and come back and shut it down when I reach target volume.

Ha ha. Good points. Still not sold, but if we all did it the same it this forum would be pretty boring. I think Bobby at Brew Hardware sells the sight glass for like $28 or something, so it's never been about "ponying up the dollars." Once I got into this I spent a few years buying every gizmo and gadget I could think of to help me "make better beer." For the past 4 to 6 months my mindset has been simplify, simplify, simplify.

I started setting up the three keggles with the idea of building a RIMS or HERMS along the lines of Sabco Brew Magic or a Ruby Street system. Now that I have a few brews under my belt with these I'm not so sure I like it. I'm about 99% certain I don't like the 15.5 gallon keggle mash tun. My 10 gallon Igloo cooler was almost new - I only used it for 2 or 3 brews. I sold it for next to nothing just to get it out of my garage, now I'm kicking myself for that. I also sold my Bayou Classic 1036 9 gallon SS pot to make room for the keggles as well.

I'm thinking about going back to the 10 gallon plastic Igloo MLT, an 8 or 9 gallon brew pot and cutting back to 2.5 to 3 gallon all-grain BIAB brews. It kind of feels like a step back to some extent, but I'm finding the more complicated I make things the longer my brew days get and the quality of beer I'm making seems to be getting worse instead of better. Time to step back and re-evaluate.