bigdawg86
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 1, 2017
- Messages
- 468
- Reaction score
- 197
Well I am licking my wounds from yesterday and trying to debrief my brew day.
First it was an ambitious beer. All grain Bourbon County Stout with 1.135OG.
I also had new RIMS tube and set up my converted cooler with essentially a "dedicated" RIMS circuit. I used a brew bag, for nothing else than using it as a filter and for clean up. I planned a long boil to try and get my numbers up.
I planned everything out, all the equipment worked well during hot water testing. Well once the brew started. Nothing worked. My RIMS pump was constantly being fed air and stopped working. For fear of scorching wort I stopped the RIMS and pump and just mashed "old school". I planned on mashing at 150°, but with all the dicking around with the hardware I ended up with a 90 minute mash at 148°. Come mash out, my 10g Home Depot cooler (which didn't leak with cold water test) leaked profusely with the hot sparge water. So I pump the water back into my BK to use that instead. I get everything flowing smoothly for a fly sparge and collected the planned 9.5 gallons of wort in two 5 gallon buckets. Pre-boil seemed low at only 13ish brix (1.053). My kettle holds 12 gallons, so I could have added more wort, but not wanting an 6 hour boil, I went ahead and boiled. 3-4 hours laters with 3lbs of DME I settled with a 1.118OG, still way under target. Oh well. Pitched TYB Dry Belgian.
When I stopped sparging, I was still running off wort that was about 10 brix (1.040) so I decided to collect enough for a second batch. I collected 6 gallons, boiled and threw in some left over hops (<1oz columbus at 60, probably 1/4oz hallertau and 1/2oz chinook at flameout) and my final 2lbs of DME I had sitting around. Finished with a frankenstout at 1.070, pitched US05.
What I learned...
1.) NO PVC should be mated to metal fittings. I realized my RIMS pump was cavitating due to the PVC pickup in my tun getting very loose. I already switched to a brass version.
2.) I think attempting to fly sparge with a brew bag wont work well, the bag seems to induce channeling as it does bunch against the MT walls in some areas... so batch sparging may be better for my current setup. At least that's my theory for such terrible efficiency.
3.) I need to rethink my HLT setup as the Home Depot cooler was kindof a disaster.
4.) RIMS is awesome, but I really need to work out some kinks to get it dialed.
Overall a nearly 12 hour brew day, an ambitious brew where nothing went as planned... but on the bright side I left with 2 different batches and learned a few things.
First it was an ambitious beer. All grain Bourbon County Stout with 1.135OG.
I also had new RIMS tube and set up my converted cooler with essentially a "dedicated" RIMS circuit. I used a brew bag, for nothing else than using it as a filter and for clean up. I planned a long boil to try and get my numbers up.
I planned everything out, all the equipment worked well during hot water testing. Well once the brew started. Nothing worked. My RIMS pump was constantly being fed air and stopped working. For fear of scorching wort I stopped the RIMS and pump and just mashed "old school". I planned on mashing at 150°, but with all the dicking around with the hardware I ended up with a 90 minute mash at 148°. Come mash out, my 10g Home Depot cooler (which didn't leak with cold water test) leaked profusely with the hot sparge water. So I pump the water back into my BK to use that instead. I get everything flowing smoothly for a fly sparge and collected the planned 9.5 gallons of wort in two 5 gallon buckets. Pre-boil seemed low at only 13ish brix (1.053). My kettle holds 12 gallons, so I could have added more wort, but not wanting an 6 hour boil, I went ahead and boiled. 3-4 hours laters with 3lbs of DME I settled with a 1.118OG, still way under target. Oh well. Pitched TYB Dry Belgian.
When I stopped sparging, I was still running off wort that was about 10 brix (1.040) so I decided to collect enough for a second batch. I collected 6 gallons, boiled and threw in some left over hops (<1oz columbus at 60, probably 1/4oz hallertau and 1/2oz chinook at flameout) and my final 2lbs of DME I had sitting around. Finished with a frankenstout at 1.070, pitched US05.
What I learned...
1.) NO PVC should be mated to metal fittings. I realized my RIMS pump was cavitating due to the PVC pickup in my tun getting very loose. I already switched to a brass version.
2.) I think attempting to fly sparge with a brew bag wont work well, the bag seems to induce channeling as it does bunch against the MT walls in some areas... so batch sparging may be better for my current setup. At least that's my theory for such terrible efficiency.
3.) I need to rethink my HLT setup as the Home Depot cooler was kindof a disaster.
4.) RIMS is awesome, but I really need to work out some kinks to get it dialed.
Overall a nearly 12 hour brew day, an ambitious brew where nothing went as planned... but on the bright side I left with 2 different batches and learned a few things.
