I use a hop spider (it was homemade) as well as hop bags. I hate having my plate chiller clog.
Blichmann BrewEasy
- Thread starter eroymada
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Sold my plate chiller with my last setup so I'll be using a immersion chiller. With my plate chiller I did use a stainless hop spider and worked great, but I realize I won't be able to leave a big one in the kettle while trying to also put in an immersion chiller.
samandbekah
Well-Known Member
I have one of these and absolutely love it. I even use pellet hops and have not had any issues. The most I've thrown in there however is 5 ounces (I am currently brewing on the Anvil Foundry). I am amazed at the spent hop cake at the bottom of the kettle after draining to the fermenter with it. It's pretty slick.
Thanks for the feedback! Pellets is what I'd primarily be using as well however hop usage would likely be around 5-10oz normally. Very tempted to just pull the trigger on it.
samandbekah
Well-Known Member
I think its very much worth the $50 bucks or whatever it is now. If you order it through Adventures in Homebrewing or MoreBeer I believe you can just take on another $10 bucks worth of supplies and you can get the free shipping.
It's honestly one of my favorite additions to the equipment that I've purchased. Especially now that I am back to doing 5 gallon batches, there's nothing better than seeing nice clear wort without all of the trub and spent hop material getting into the fermenter. It allows me to harvest the yeast from my carboy batch after batch because there's no junk in it (from the kettle).
Another perk is knowing you'd get full utilization. Thanks again, I'm definitely leaning towards it.
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Any suggestions for best practices in planning salt & acid additions on this kind of setup?
Something I'm struggling to understand is that the instructions say to first dough in for 10 min at strike temp before you begin the recirculation (and add the remaining mash water) .
I'm assuming PH in the first ten minutes matters and you can't just look at the total mash volume when calculating
How would you best calculate the salt & acid additions for the dough in stage and then for the remaining mash water to be added at 10 min?
I'm sure the process would also require different procedures depending if you are planning to lower PH (most beers) or raise it (on say a stout)
Something I'm struggling to understand is that the instructions say to first dough in for 10 min at strike temp before you begin the recirculation (and add the remaining mash water) .
I'm assuming PH in the first ten minutes matters and you can't just look at the total mash volume when calculating
How would you best calculate the salt & acid additions for the dough in stage and then for the remaining mash water to be added at 10 min?
I'm sure the process would also require different procedures depending if you are planning to lower PH (most beers) or raise it (on say a stout)
I spent time trying to figure this out as well. Since the mash volume is less than total water volume (especially before recirculation) the water to grist ratio is different than a full volume BIAB. This should affect pH calculations as you said. I never got a good answer form the beersmith forums and I just use Beersmith to do the water pH calculations. I believe its using the full volume for calculations. Despite this, I check mash pH regularly and it is always within the range I want so I quit worrying about it.
The brew easy is essentially a full volume mash, BIAB process with the only difference being the total volume of mash is split between two vessels. The profile in all software you would use are built around BIAB and no sparge. The water calculations, including salts, acids and volumes should just be based on the total water.
In my opinion, the dough in phase should begin with pumping almost all the water up into the mash tun (make sure you disable the BK element first) or as much as you can fit along with the grain. Keep in mind that grain displaces .075 gallons per pound so 10 pounds needs .75 gallons of space. Stir the grain in gently and let it settle for 10 minutes. Then allow at least 4 gallons of wort to drain to the boil kettle, set the autosparge float at that point and begin slow recirculation.
The alternate way to do it is to keep all the water in the boil kettle, put all the dry grain into the mash tun, then pump all but 4 gallons into the mash tun through the drain port to underlet the mash.
In my opinion, the dough in phase should begin with pumping almost all the water up into the mash tun (make sure you disable the BK element first) or as much as you can fit along with the grain. Keep in mind that grain displaces .075 gallons per pound so 10 pounds needs .75 gallons of space. Stir the grain in gently and let it settle for 10 minutes. Then allow at least 4 gallons of wort to drain to the boil kettle, set the autosparge float at that point and begin slow recirculation.
The alternate way to do it is to keep all the water in the boil kettle, put all the dry grain into the mash tun, then pump all but 4 gallons into the mash tun through the drain port to underlet the mash.
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