Converted Keg (Keggle) deadspace in Beersmith?

[-CHRIS-]

I am starting to use Bru'n Water and have seemed to find an issue with my equipment profile in beersmith. I have a 3 vessel eHERMS system. My mash tun is a keggle with a brewhardware.com dip tube. I am also using the false bottom that brewhardware.com supplies. I can completely drain the mash tun leaving a few ounces of liquid in the bottom. I would think this would mean my deadspace in Beersmith should be a few ounces at most. When I set it that low, my mash volume is too low and the mash thickness is pretty high.

I have attributed this to the massive volume of liquid below the false bottom in the keg. I think there is almost 1 gallon of liquid below the false bottom in my keggle. To fix this, I set my deadspace in beersmith to 1 gallon and all has been good for dozens of batches, but I always have liquid left over in the mash tun once I reach my pre boil volume.

Compared to a flat bottom kettle like a Blichmann, keggles have massive amounts of space between the bottom of the false bottom and bottom of the keggle which really causes issues with smaller batches.

What do you folks think? What is your deadspace entry in beersmith for your keggle?

My interim fix has been to drop the deadspace to .25 gallons and increase my grist ratio from 1.25 to 1.5 for an IPA which seems to give the right volume for mashing and almost a gallon less sparge water which is good.

Chris

 

[eluterio]

Ill have to look on my settings but mine is set similar to yours at a .25 left over.

 

[jcav]

Each system is a little different. I uses a three vessel herms with keggles (electric brewery not gas, but it shouldn't matter). For Beersmith and my system I had to enter the amount of liquid that just covers the top of the false bottom. For me it is 3 quarts, 14 ounces. I can drain my mash tun all the way also and only leave a few ounces but it doesn't matter, I had to still enter the amount of liquid under the false bottom. I filled up the mash tun and measured until I just got the water level to come up through the false bottom and just barely cover the top of the false bottom, and that was the amount of liquid it took to do that (3 quarts 14 ounces). Once I put that number in Beersmith I was ok. Also since I follow the Electric Brewery's step by step brew day, I don't even have to deal with measuring the correct amount of sparge water. As long as there is enough water in the HLT, I just sparge until I hit my pre boil volume in the boil kettle and then stop. I take a reading and I am ready to boil. Works very well and makes excellent beer!

John

 

[-CHRIS-]

I can drain my mash ton all the way also and only leave a few ounces but it doesn't matter, I had to still enter the amount of liquid under the false bottom.

John

John, that was what I was doing as well, I counted all the volume under the false bottom as deadspace. I am sure sure that is right though. Where did you read to count all the space under the false bottom? I think the real definition of deadspace is only the liquid left over when fully drained, which isn't that much at all. Keggles are a strange beast since the volume under the false bottom is huge compared to flat bottom vessels which gives you a thicker mash for a given volume of water.

On a separate note, did you use to post on the Woodnet forums?

Chris

 

[jcav]

John, that was what I was doing as well, I counted all the volume under the false bottom as deadspace. I am sure sure that is right though. Where did you read to count all the space under the false bottom? I think the real definition of deadspace is only the liquid left over when fully drained, which isn't that much at all. Keggles are a strange beast since the volume under the false bottom is huge compared to flat bottom vessels which gives you a thicker mash for a given volume of water.

On a separate note, did you use to post on the Woodnet forums?

Chris

Chris you won't find this on Beersmith or it's forum I believe. I follow Kal's way of doing it as I built a Kal clone and this is how I get the best efficiency and have an easy brew day, by just following these steps. I got this info from his site and here is a link to the page that deals with this equation:
http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/brew-day-step-by-step?page=5

If you read the whole step by step brew day guide you will see how I do it. It's really a no brainer for me. Anyway once I punched those numbers in Beersmith and fine tuned it for my system, Beersmith gave me better volume numbers for mashing, sparging and boiling. Your results may vary if you don't want to follow this way of brewing. I just thought I'd help you out as my system was a little hard to get right in Beersmith when I first started messing with it.

I have never posted on the woodnet forums, I really only post on here actually. Oh and I post on "The Electric Brewery Forum". Hope this helps......

John

 

[Bobby_M]

Space below a false bottom is not deadspace. Deadspace is volume that is lost due to not being able to drain out. All you have to do is set your mash thickness to something like 1.5 qts/lb. The space below the false bottom is actually only 7/8 of a gallon. If you're used to 1.25 qt/lb, that's about 4 gallons for a 13 pound grist. If ~gallon is below, the apparent thickness is closer to 1 qt/lb. You can either stick to 1.25 qts per pound and then intently adding 1 gallon more or going to 1.5 qt/lb which will stir more like a full 1.25qt/lb ratio.

 

[-CHRIS-]

Space below a false bottom is not deadspace. Deadspace is volume that is lost due to not being able to drain out. All you have to do is set your mash thickness to something like 1.5 qts/lb. The space below the false bottom is actually only 7/8 of a gallon. If you're used to 1.25 qt/lb, that's about 4 gallons for a 13 pound grist. If ~gallon is below, the apparent thickness is closer to 1 qt/lb. You can either stick to 1.25 qts per pound and then intently adding 1 gallon more or going to 1.5 qt/lb which will stir more like a full 1.25qt/lb ratio.

It is interesting that Kal considers the space under the false bottom as well as the volume in the HERMS coil as deadspace as per the link above. With a 5 gallon brew in a keggle, it is a real problem keeping the grain bed fully covered with a 1.25 grist ratio and the deadspace set to .25g. My compromise has been to set the deadspace to 1 gallon which in turn drives up the grist ratio.

Bobby, I know you like building innovative accessories, how about a device to take up all the space under the false bottom in a keggle? I was thinking about buying a few dozen stainless steel ice cubes (1" x 1" x 1")

Chris

 

[Bobby_M]

I don't know why Kal would suggest that other than the fact that there is no term for that volume and he's lumping it in. I've been calling it slack space. There is really no problem just increasing your water to grain ratio to deal with this. An extra gallon is no big deal. 1.25 qt/lb is an arbitrary rule of thumb that is perpetuated just "because". Let it go.