Brewery Upgrade

[SkiNuke]

I recently brewed a helles and got some nasty chill haze. Cloudy as all get out when cold and crystal clear at room temperature. I have since looked at my brewery and decided I want to make a few upgrades.

I have a pretty disparate system:
1) I mash on a table with a 5 gallon round cooler.
2) I have a bayou burner on the ground for both heating mash/sparge water and boiling.
3) I use a 8 gallon pot for the mash water and boiling, but 2 5 gallon pots for my sparge water.
4) I chill using an immersion chiller (I don't know the length, but it's short) and constantly stir to ensure it actually chills.
5) I pour the chilled wort into a bucket with a paint strainer to filter out hops.

My end goal in 5 years or so (when I finally get settled in life) is to build a rack for everything and use pumps to pipe everything around. However, I'd rather avoid that for now since storage is a pain.

What I am looking into right now is upgrading my process/equipment from brew kettle to fermenter.

For chilling, I'm debating between:
1) CFC with gravity or pump
2) Fancy immersion chiller with a design that wouldn't need my to stir.
3) Whirlpool chiller and keeping my current immersion chiller for that.

I'm leaning more towards the fancy immersion chiller since it will be the least amount of cleaning involved and I really wouldn't need to change my pot either. However, I would be still straining with the paint strainer so the cold break will probably be in the fermenter.

For my boil pot, I'm looking at a few options:
1) Adding a spigot (and some sort of strainer) to my current 8 gallon aluminum pot
2) Upgrading pot size and installing a spigot (and some sort of strainer)
3) No spigot

I like the idea of upgrading to a 10 gallon pot for head space when boiling, but I feel if I buy a new pot I'd rather never have to buy another. And I'm leaning towards a spigot so I can leave behind trub.

Sorry for the long post. I appreciate your thoughts.

 

[The_Bishop]

You should consider adding whirlfloc in the last 5 minutes of the boil to aid cold-break formation when chilling. Also, a rapid chill down will aid in chill haze reduction.

If you have a means for cold crashing after your ferment is complete, that will get the chill haze to form. Then fine it with gelatin to drop the chill haze before bottling/kegging. You will have plenty of yeast for bottle conditioning even though the beer looks very, very clear. As an added bonus, there's less trub in the bottles and the yeast dusting on the bottom sticks pretty hard so you can get a clean pour of almost all the beer in the bottle.

Any IC is going to require wort movement to chill efficiently. If you're incorporating a pump, a whirlpool arm is handy for both chilling and trub collection in the center of the kettle.

 

[SkiNuke]

I force carb all of my beer in kegs, then bottle from kegs. As such, I already cold crash after fermentation is complete (for lager and ale). I haven't ever used finings, would this clear up the chill haze I have right now? I might do it for this brew, but I feel that's a band aid solution and would like to fix it at the source. Any suggestions on CFC over whirlpool chilling?

 

[The_Bishop]

Yes, gelatin will clear up the chill haze you have now. Not sure I'd call it a bandaid, because a whole lot of pros use finings!

I had a plate chiller, and went back to an IC that I made myself. I wasn't happy with the hop utilization I was getting from using a spider or a stainless hop basket, so I sold the plate chiller and went back to an immersion chiller and a whirlpool arm. It made whirlpool hop additions easy and more effective, and it makes a nice tight trub cone once it all settles.

I like the fact that I can see the whole surface of the chiller that's going to contact my beer. I can see that it's clean with nothing hiding in it; that always bothered me about the plate chiller.

 

[SkiNuke]

A couple queations:

If you have a whirlpool arm, isn't the piping and inside of the pump hidden from view? Do you attach and run the pump towards the end of the boil to ensure it's sanitized?

Does the IC get in the way of the trub cone, and does the whirlpool arm and pump get clogged at first when there are hops in suspension?

How clear is the wort when you drain at the end? Do you have to strain the first and last running?

For a whirlpool to be effective, how much head space is needed to ensure no spillage? I don't think my 8 gallon pot would be big enough.

Thanks.

 

[The_Bishop]

The whirlpool arm is easily disassembled from the kettle, so it can be cleaned. I attach my pump and hoses at the end of the boil, and recirculate at flameout to sanitize said equipment. I'll also submerge the IC at flameout.

I keep the IC in until I'm at my target cooling temperature, recirculating the whole time. Once I'm chilled, I remove the IC and continue to whirlpool for a few more minutes. Then I'll shut the pump down and let everything settle with the lid on for 15-20 minutes. That's enough for the hot break and hops to form a cone, and for some of the cold break to settle.

I don't worry about cold break into the fermenter when I transfer. I'd say I leave behind 70% of the trub and hops. What little makes it's way into the fermenter has not been a problem.

The whirlpool isn't a giant vortex; it's not that violent. I'd think you'd be fine with an 8 gallon pot for a post boil whirlpool.