First 3 vessel all grain. Follow along with me today!

I have brewed extract since last December, moved to propane biab in the summer, and now I am doing my first 3 vessel gravity set up. I will be making the cream ale recipe from the classic styles book. I will be posting pictures and times of the goings on throughout the day.

I will also be reviewing some of the new gear I got. Things might get hectic here or there, but I will do my best to keep posting.

Have a great day. LET'S BREW!!!

 

woot - good luck!

 

Just don't post as the wort is coming to a boil. It WILL cause a boil over. http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=482248

 

This is the BeerSmith instructions for today's brew.

 

I'm glad you picked a pretty easy recipe. Get some us05 and you can't go wrong.

Cheers!

 

Gonna be pitching wlp001.

 

Just put 10.25 gallons in the hlt. Water temperature is 61* shooting for 166* here's the rig we're brewing on today.

 

Sorry about sideways pics.

 

Here's a look at the grain bill today. Smells awesome !

 

Gotta keep good notes.

 

I have never used liberty hops... I guess it's like a noble hop?

 

one of my favorites, just bought a lb of them.

 

They have a really nice citrus smell. Not harsh at all. Great in cream ale, and pale ales.

Just hit 110*

 

Beer smith says 166* strike temp when I entered a kettle temp of 59* and grain at 65* I plan to underlett the mash. Does this sound correct. I will also be using a couple handfuls of rice hulls in the mash. Should I wet the rice hulls to decrease wort absorption ?

 

what is underlett the mash mean? And no need to wet the hulls they dont soak that much.

 

The wort absorption from the hulls is negligible really.

 

Cool. Am I correct in assuming that the hulls impact on temp will be negligible as well ?

 

Is that an Edelmetall brew kettle and center of gravity tower from NB. I would be interested in your review of each.

 

yea pretty much ignore them from all calculations honestly.

 

Yes they are. I will be reviewing each as the day goes along. Got them from Midwest Supplies during their 15% off sale last week.

 

Just passing 140* time for the first mini review. I bought a new bottle filler. So nice to be able to fill from a keg. I love that I can do it at serving pressure as well. Easier to use than the blichmann too. After pressing the co2 button, you just press down on the filler in the bottle l I ice a normal bottle filler. Let it fill to the top, an remove the filler. Perfect head space. Easy to clean too.

Love the box it comes in too. Nice presentation. It's the little things. You know ?

 

Hlt hit 168. Underlett the mash with 3.5gal stirred, and got 142. I think there is not enough in the kettle for the probe to read correctly.

 

Still having temp probs. Don't understand. It's okay, beer is supposed to be dry...relax have a homebrew...

 

Did you preheat your kettle, tubes and pump? You could get heat loss that way also.

 

underletting means filling the mash tun from the bottom for dough-in. I did this for the first time last brew day and it saturated the grain with no clumps. I will be doing this from now on!

 

Did you notice a difference in heat loss vs just dumping it in and then adding grain?

 

Come to think of it I came in lower than expected also. Not sure why underletting would be any diff.

 

No I didn't preheat anything, but will next time. Also I noticed that the temp probe was barely covered in the mash. This I think could lead to inaccurate temp readings.

I am heating for boiling now. Burner gets me about a degree a minute. A little slow compared to my edalmetall burner. It's lunchtime anyway.

 

Yeah, in my kettles I have to do 10 gallon batches because as you found out, the probes must be submerged. Next time you could just use more water and have a thinner mash.

A spirits based thermometer is also good to have and only a few bucks.

 

About to clean the mash tun, but I thought I would talk a bit about my first time mashing with a false bottom and a sparge arm. Besides the temp probe problems, the mash tun worked like a dream. I only had a small problem with grain bed compaction one I started to recirculate via a pump. Once I backed of the flow a bit, things went smoothly.

The wort coming out of the sparge arm was so clear. Fantastic. The top of the Imperial Sparge was a little tall. It meant that the hose from the hlt was horizontal and had a little trouble starting flow into the sparge arm.i could use a pump to solve this, but then what's the point of a gravity system ?

Once it got started though, it was a dream. Never had a stuck sparge. Maintained 1-2 inches above the grain bed. Sparge was done in about 35 minutes. Seems a little fast, but I only sparged 5.75gallons. Did a vorlauf, but didn't really need to after recirculation. Ended up with 7.5 gallons of 1.041 wort in the boil kettle.

 

So...my first disappointment of the day. The burners on the center of gravity are underpowered. I don't mind so much the hlt and mash burners being low powered, but the boil burner can only bring 8 gallons of wort to a high simmer. If I want a vigorous boil, I have to leave the lid on the kettle. I have cracked the lid open a bit to allow boil off and other gasses to escape, but I'll be waiting until I'm an old man before I get hot break...

 

Maybe you can swap it out for the guts of a blichmann. If the fit is good it'd be worth it. Mine will melt stainless...lol

 

Sucks about the boil burner. Change that sucker out.

 

This is a pic of the lid on the kettle.it gives an idea of what is required to get a rolling boil with this burner. I am going to order a bg-10 burner from amazon. It's only 16 bucks. It's high pressure, but with the 5 psi regulator on the center of gravity, it should be noticeable improvement.

I also show the tangential inlet. I have been unable to get a tight seal to prevent leaks, but the boiling wort seems to have sealed it for me.

 

Just added the bittering hops. Liberty is so nice.

 

I didn't bother to use my hop spider this time. I want to test how well the tangential whirlpool port works. Combined with the new threadless diptube, I should be able to draw pretty clean wort. Of course, ther is only 2 ounces of hops in this recipie.

I'll still use me strainer as it goes into the fermenter.

 

Do those kettles have triclad bottoms? The copper sure looks cool.

 

Yeah. They are really nice kettles. I will recommend them to anybody! They look great, performance is awesome, and the new weldless fittings are super nice. I bought it for 15% off from Midwest.

 

Okay. So the trick is to leave the lid on but cracked to get a good boil. I don't feel so bad now, but I'm still going to order the bg-10 burner to replace the CoG burner.

 

Wait...did the hops come packaged like that or is that your own packaging? Its not even vacuum sealed?