Grant for rims system

[jaginger]

Wowsers. I thought any old dope like me could brew tasty beer.

Guess i'm gonna have to take up another hobby.

 

[Catt22]

Also when looking for info, if you look for answers from home brew knowledge, your not going to get very advanced information. If you really want solid answers you need to start buying real technical brewing textbooks or go to a real brewing school and get an education.

That should liven things up a bit.

 

[organikbrewer]

http://interactive.mbaa.com/source/Orders/index.cfm?SKU=99999

Buy some of these books, if you want to know the facts.

 

[jaginger]

What should i do if i cant read????!!!!

 

[organikbrewer]

I guess home brewing for me has a different meaning. I like to brew the best beers possible, I am always trying to brew beer better than I make at work. Because honestly I think a lot of micro brews are pretty poor in quality. Home brewing is away for me to put my experience to practice without the limitations of my employer. So I take my home brewing seriously, I enjoy brewing a lot and like to share my knowledge with others, because I once was just a home brewer. I have noticed with my local club and online that most home brewers are not concerned with quality and just enjoy drinking beer and making some beer and that is fine. I am sorry to be short, it gets frustrating some times. I understand people's hesitance, you don't know me, your not just going to believe what ever I say. And I am not an industry expert. But I do have education and experience. I would like to help, if you don't want help, cool! Good Luck. But really how often does a professional actually take the time to answer your questions?

 

[wuertele]

how often does a professional actually take the time to answer your questions?

Not very often. If you don't answer my question, I certainly don't have a right to gripe about it. Of course, if you did answer my question it would be of great value to me, even if you were short. Saying that I should go to school to find the answer, or read every pro brewer book currently being published, is being short without providing an answer.

So, what is the relationship between fast lautering and poor extract? Please feel free to refer me to a specific reference.

My question is only about lautering rate. Assume that my sparge temperature and pH are in the proper range, and that the grains are not exposed to air. How does the lautering rate affect extract quality?

 

[jaginger]

I guess home brewing for me...

I hear where you're coming from, OB. I'd have to say this post has a bit different tone than the prior 2 and it is nice to have suggestions from some with a lot of experience.

I see you haven't posted here all that often, so you may not be aware that a lot of the folks on here are very interested in quality and do a lot to improve and make good beer. Of course some just want to "make some burr" too.

That's great you get to brew for a living; keep up the good work.

 

[organikbrewer]

Sorry, I think I was having a bad day yesterday. I am pretty sure I went over why you get better extract in earlier post. A fast flow causes wort to take the path of least resistance, and that causes channeling. When you create channels, your are not rinsing the grain, you are pulling sparge water from the top. Also fast flow causes compaction which will also cause channeling. The point of sparging is even rinsing of the grain bed. At first the wort in the malt is very viscous so you need to go slow and keep it hot, around 168. Once the viscosity drops you can speed up, but you want to avoid compacting the mash and creating channeling. I have been home brewing for over 10 years and I always noticed that my gravities were lower if I ran off faster than 1 hr. Use Plato it is more accurate and always precisely measure your grain and volumes in order to calculate your extract. Try brewing a very simple beer like a Pilsner with 100% Pilsner malt a few times and try running off a different speeds, as long as you have accurate measurements you can monitor the amount of extract your extracting. Brewing in Metric is far easier than standard, but here is a simple way to figure out your extract. 1 litre of distilled water at 60 degrees weighs 1 kg. A Specific gravity of 1.000 is water so if your wort is 1.048 that means each liter weighs 1.048 kg or 1048 grams. So take your volume times you gravity and divide it by your weight of malt used. In metric, and you have the weight of your wort. Multiply that by you gravity in plato divided by 100, so 11.5 would be .115 and then divide that by the weight of your malt and you have the percent of the weight of your malt that was extracted. On average the maximum of extract in malt is 80% of the weight, the rest is husk, endosperm, gums, etc. But please trust me when I tell you that you should runoff, very slowly and keep you mash bed very even. I was not trying to tell you, you need to spend a lot of money on education, I was trying to tell you if you want good info you need to get it from good sources. Sorry but a lot of home brew sources are wrong or poor. There are some good books, but they can't possibly cover everything in detail, so if you want that sort of info you need to buy books written by industry leaders, but they way be unrealistic for you.

 

[wuertele]

A fast flow causes wort to take the path of least resistance, and that causes channeling. When you create channels, your are not rinsing the grain, you are pulling sparge water from the top. Also fast flow causes compaction which will also cause channeling. The point of sparging is even rinsing of the grain bed.

Thanks, that clears it up for me a lot. It sounds like the problem is one of efficiency, not of defective wort. Is that right?

My goal is to reduce the time it takes me to brew without hurting the quality of the beer. I have the hours between 9pm and midnight to myself: weekdays belong to the mortgage and weekends to the family. So I spend a lot of time brainstorming how I could brew in three hours, including all cleaning, using a minimum of energy (since there isn't much left in my tank at the end of the day). I'm willing to risk lower extract efficiencies but not defective wort.

My current idea is to use my BK as a huge grant, continuously recirculating between the MT and the BK. This implies a very thin mash (like BIAB). I don't know why nobody does this, because I see several advantages: there is no sparge, so I can hit a gravity easily. I don't need an HLT. When I hit my gravity, half my wort is already in the BK so I can start my burner and get a head start on the boil. I can use the burner in the BK to help with temp increases for step mashes or mashout.

I don't need to recirculate quickly during the mash, but once I hit my gravity I want to extract the remaining wort from the MT as quickly as possible. I am building a system to monitor vaccuum and adjust the pumping rate to avoid stuck mashes. I plan to use rice hulls to push the envelope even further.

 

[organikbrewer]

I am sorry you don't have time, that is to bad, because beer takes time and I feel it should never be rushed. But if you don't have the time, you can cut corners. You can get good conversion in 20 minutes, just use good two-row with very little specialty malts. Less than 10% of grist. Also Higher mash temp hasten conversion time, but make a less fermentable wort. You can run off faster, if you make a shallower mash bed with a false bottom with lots of surface area. As far as recirculating wort into your kettle and heating it up, that's not a good idea. That is where all the enzymes are and if you heat them up you will denature the enzymes and stop conversion. Just stick with a single infusion mash. Maybe you should build a bigger system, so you don't need to brew as often, so you can spend more time when you do. It really should take at least 6 hrs. to brew a beer. As far as wort is concerned you want it very clear, the cloudy particles cause off flavors in your beer, you maybe you should use a coarse water filter as you run off. Good Luck!

 

[Reelale]

Thanks, that clears it up for me a lot. It sounds like the problem is one of efficiency, not of defective wort. Is that right?

My goal is to reduce the time it takes me to brew without hurting the quality of the beer. I have the hours between 9pm and midnight to myself: weekdays belong to the mortgage and weekends to the family. So I spend a lot of time brainstorming how I could brew in three hours, including all cleaning, using a minimum of energy (since there isn't much left in my tank at the end of the day). I'm willing to risk lower extract efficiencies but not defective wort.

My current idea is to use my BK as a huge grant, continuously recirculating between the MT and the BK. This implies a very thin mash (like BIAB). I don't know why nobody does this, because I see several advantages: there is no sparge, so I can hit a gravity easily. I don't need an HLT. When I hit my gravity, half my wort is already in the BK so I can start my burner and get a head start on the boil. I can use the burner in the BK to help with temp increases for step mashes or mashout.

I don't need to recirculate quickly during the mash, but once I hit my gravity I want to extract the remaining wort from the MT as quickly as possible. I am building a system to monitor vaccuum and adjust the pumping rate to avoid stuck mashes. I plan to use rice hulls to push the envelope even further.

That is exactly what I do. There's a few who do the same. Check out the "I love no-sparge brewing" thread. However, I only use the burner on the BK to heat strike water and occasionally as a boost to mash-out temperature. I have a RIMS between the BK and the MLT to maintain mash temperature. Before the RIMS, it was way too easy to overshoot temperatures through direct-firing the BK. One thing I've noticed with a false bottom on a bottom drain sanke MLT is the amount of particles that make it into the BK. I drain the MLT through a hop spider now. I get crystal clear wort now. My efficiency is running between 62%-65% with no-sparge. Good luck hitting that 3-hour brew though. It takes me around 4-5 hours on a good day.

 

[pfooti]

Yeah, it's worth noting that most of the discussion here about lauter speeds largely impact extract efficiency. For homebrewers that's typically not the biggest deal- if you're only hitting 65%, throw in a few more dollars worth of grain. As scale increases, so does the importance of efficiency, which explains why organikbrewer is so hung up on efficiency stuff.

Personally, I brew without a grant or trombone using a blichmann false bottom. I restrict flow from the MLT during the lauter (and during recirculation whilst mashing) with the simple expedient of a valve on the pump outflow. I admit that a grant would be nice in particular as a way to keep a better handle on flow rates.

I'm not really sure how the trombone functions to reduce pressure on the grain bed. As far as I can see, the only real factor that influences grain bed compaction is flow rate out of the false bottom. Reducing the flow rate should reduce the compaction amount. You could moderate that flow rate in a number of ways, and I suppose the trombone is one of them (by radically reducing the effect of gravity on an open-valve flow).

Alternatively, once wort is flowing into the grant (thus causing a siphon at your MLT outlet) you could raise the grant itself so it is somewhat higher in the air- same net effect- slowing the rate of flow via gravity due to a reduced height difference between the outlet and the top of the water column. Keep the outlet below the top of the water level in the MLT is all.

 

[organikbrewer]

I brewed a Kolsch yesterday in 5 hrs. It took me 120 minutes to runoff and I had a efficiency over 90%. Getting a good consistent efficiency, means I can calculate out my grain bill and OG with consistent results. If my OG if off than so are my hops. I know you guys, don't have the time, experience and knowledge. So your just trying to make so beer and have fun, great. I like to try to help others by teaching them things, but it's not what everybody wants to hear. I was merely looking for plans on wiring up a grant controlled by float switches. I was reading that someone was having compaction problems, so I suggested a trombone, which work beautifully and give better extract (saves you money). Take what you want from what I have said, I can tell people are happy with their setups. Great! I will not be adding anymore to this post, I feel like it is going no where.

 

[pfooti]

For the record, and I don't know if you're even watching this thread anymore, your saying stuff like "I know you guys don't have the time, experience, and knowledge" better explains the slight debate you're getting in this thread rather than any homebrewer predisposition away from Learning New Things. If you can put the 'tude in a bucket, life will be easier.

Getting a consistent efficiency is very important, I agree. I'd say being consistent is far more important than any given efficiency level. I'd rather always hit 65% than range from 75% to 90%. In an ideal world, however, I'd have both- I'd always hit 90%.

I apologize if you think I was dinging your trombone- I'm sure it is a good solution for you (clearly, if you're getting good efficiency levels). For someone brewing on the 5-20 gallon scale, however, it seems to be an over-engineered solution to the problem. If you just raise the actual position of the grant so it's not on the ground but instead situated somewhere below the top of the water column in your MLT, you'll get the same results. On a commercial scale I'm sure that's not feasible, given the weight of water and hard plumbing.

Of course, some people love using over-engineered solutions to their problems. I'm currently working on a design for a sparge manifold that's a lot neater-looking than most, but probably only marginally more efficient than a plain old silicone tube laying on top of the grain bed.

 

[mrbobble]

I honestly never saw the attitude come across from "organikbrewer" who posted here. I appreciated his honest input and him taking the time to provide thoughtful detailed suggestions.
School and reading the proper books are logical suggestions coming from someone who lives and breathes what we do for kicks in our free time.
Just my two cents.

 

[pola0502ds]

back to a couple posts on the previous page, some questions. If you are sparging very slow, then whats the best way to maintain your sparge water temp? Does anyone heat it up to the correct temp and then once it starts to drop, heat it up again?

 

[organikbrewer]

As I promised pictures of my trombone, for those brewers who don't treat their beer like a microwave dinner.

 

[BrewForMe]

I for one would like to thank you Organikbrewer for the information and the pics of the trombone. I am fairly new and have not started AG yet, but i plan to this summer. I too wanna make the best, most consistant beer possible and i now understand that it cannot be rushed. I dont mind taking an extra 2 hours to brew a "perfect' batch as i take pride in what i am doing. thank you again.

 

[organikbrewer]

Here are a few more pics. For the guys who want to run off fast, you can still do that with a trombone. Maybe not as fast as you want, I am still wondering what your target time is? You should really shoot for an hour, and don't worry about over extracting, you need to breach 98% efficiency to do that. The most important thing you can do to get quality wort is hit you target ph, Mash 5.2-5.4 and sparge water should be treated to 5.7 any higher and you develop darker wort and leach tannins. Also remember recirculating is very important, as any cloudiness or chunks in your kettle will lead to off flavors and staling compounds. Time should be the last thing your worried about when your making beer, you should treat it like your slow cooking some ribs. Have a beer and have fun.

 

[pola0502ds]

Wow, thanks buddy. Now i'm starting to understand it. Just so I understand this, do you still use a grant with this system? Or is it not needed with a setup. The reason I started this thread was because I was concerned of compacting my grain bed on a single tier system using all pumps, no gravity. There is not a overall pic of your system so I cannot tell.

What do you think of 5 star chemical ph 5.2 chemical? I just ask, because I would like to know what you do to treat you water to maintain the mash ph you described.

 

[organikbrewer]

The 1 1/2 pipe is the grant. I plan on making one with float switches, but for now I just crack the pump exit valve and match it by adjusting the trombone so the fluid level in the grant stays in the same spot. As far as water treatment I use Gypsum, CaCl, and Lactic acid or Citric acid. You want 50-100 ppm of Ca in your water, and usually that will give you the correct ph. I'd have to look at your local water report, to know whats really going on. And I use acids for my sparge water, and for mashes when I want the water soft. The 5.2 product I m sure works fine for standard water, I have never used it. It's easy and cheap just to buy gypsum. Multiply your volume in liters by 215, and you'll get the amount of gypsum in mg, you need for 50 ppm Ca. Be careful, because gypsum has sulphate which can be very strong in flavor, so don't over treat your water.

 

[Foosinho]

As I promised pictures of my trombone, for those brewers who don't treat their beer like a microwave dinner.

I think this is what pfooti is talking about. It's pretty offputting. That said, I think you've contributed GREAT information here, and I'm planning on adding a trombone to my own setup (bookmarked the thread) because I understand how it works and personally I'm interested in maximizing my quality. Plus, I'm an engineer and like building things.

Just remember, not everyone will implement what you do - that's not a knock against your knowledge or experience. As you've noted, others may have different goals - it's best if you just accept that, and not look down your nose at those people (at least, keep it to yourself! ) Similarly, some may challenge the validity of what you say; look at that as an opportunity to share your knowledge and experience in more detail; if they still disagree (or are unwilling to take your advice, for whatever reason), just let it go.

It is, after all, the internet. You might be coming across more alienating than you intend, and there will always be people who (rightly or wrongly) disagree with you.

Anyway, I'm guessing you keep the grant so narrow to... well, why, exactly? It seems to me like a slightly larger grant would make it easier to (a) monitor it's fluid level and (b) monitor the appearance of the wort. (Keep in mind, I haven't actually stepped up to all-grain yet - only moved to a place with sufficient space a few months ago. So my question might be pretty stupid. )

 

[organikbrewer]

It's funny in America time always trumps quality. Even at a hobbiest level apparently. I don't care if people agree with me or not, but they are arguing with me to validate their quick brewing techniques. Their goal is not to make refined beers, but to pump out beer as quickly as possible. I think it's a shame, it reminds me of my job. They never say our beer is the best it has ever been, I have never heard that once. I constantly here we are making more beer than we ever have. The quality is never a concern, and it because breweries are ran by people who don't know anything about beer. The more you know about something the more you want to do it the right way. I think if home brewers learn more they will enjoy brewing more and take more pride in their beer. I am happy you like the trombone setup, I hope it works for you, they are a little tricky at times. As far as the size of the grant, it's not really all that important. A larger one would make it easier to monitor, but would also heat sink more heat from the wort.

 

[wuertele]

I don't care if people agree with me or not, but they are arguing with me to validate their quick brewing techniques. Their goal is not to make refined beers, but to pump out beer as quickly as possible.

If you are talking about me, you are mistaken. I don't care whether you read my replies to your posts, but please don't misrepresent them.

I will not sacrifice quality for time. But I will work very hard to optimize my time, even if it means spending more money to make my beer.

Your posts have not identified a single wort defect attributable to fast lautering. Poor efficiency is the only issue you identified that *might* be attributable to fast lautering. Since efficiency is not a quality issue but a cost issue, it is of no concern to me. I will still try to find ways to mitigate any efficiency problems that might occur, as soon as I encounter any, just not at the expense of time.

 

[pola0502ds]

You know guys, I started this thread for other reasons than to argue. Can you please take your differences somewhere else, like PM's. I really enjoy the information posted here and I don't want some members to stop posting here.

 

[organikbrewer]

Sorry for being short, I am not attacking anyone personally, but the methods. I am sure everyone is great and are great people sit down and drink a beer with. I feel like I have to keep repeating myself. I have restated things several times, and it seems to me that some people are ignoring my words because they conflict with their methods. I do not want to argue time, time is the least important thing to save when your trying to brew good beer. Methods and techniques are of the utmost importance, to brewing good beer. I want to discuss proper techniques only, I am not here to justify brewing in a hurry. So lets start with this point, the point of Lautering is to rinse the extract from the grist and leave behind solids. Malt is on average 80% extract and 20% solids, as brewers we want to extract the fermentables and leave behind the undesirable compounds. We do this by using proper rinsing techniques, and with the use of good equipment. If your techniques or equipment allow for solids to make it into your kettle you will degrade your wort quality. Maintaining proper ph is vital, also lautering at 168 degrees and going slow, is key to rinsing the extract while leaving behind the solids. In the industry we use what is called an Imhoff cone http://www.colonialscientific.com/OScatalog/index.php?cPath=152_253_255 . The Imhoff cone is 1 liter(which is to big for a home brew) But it is a graduated cone and what you do is Recirculate your mash and when it is clear you take a sample and fill the Imhoff cone and if there is more than 1ml of sediment in your cone than your letting to much solids into your kettle. This means you need to recirculate longer or you have an issue with your false bottom. Once you have under 1ml you can start sending your wort to the kettle. If you are running off fast or if your runoff changes flow it allows solids to break free and flow into your kettle. When you go slow and gentle you avoid letting a lot of solids through. It's sorta like having an open trash can in the back of a pickup. If you drive slow, maybe a napkin or two will fly out, but if you go fast your going to leave a trail of trash on the road. I think Patience is one of the most important qualities a brewer can have. Take a look at Belgian and German brewers, they make the best beers in the world. The Germans use superior techniques and equipment, while the Belgians have the most patience in the world when it comes to their beer. I am sure you'll find a quote in here to make me look like a jerk, but please take the time to learn from my words and not take anything as a personal attack.

 

[wuertele]

If your techniques or equipment allow for solids to make it into your kettle you will degrade your wort quality. Maintaining proper ph is vital, also lautering at 168 degrees and going slow, is key to rinsing the extract while leaving behind the solids. In the industry we use what is called an Imhoff cone http://www.colonialscientific.com/OScatalog/index.php?cPath=152_253_255 . The Imhoff cone is 1 liter(which is to big for a home brew) But it is a graduated cone and what you do is Recirculate your mash and when it is clear you take a sample and fill the Imhoff cone and if there is more than 1ml of sediment in your cone than your letting to much solids into your kettle.

Thanks, this is new information, it is very interesting and I'm going to give the cone a try.

Do you know why 1 ml per liter is the cutoff for solids? Don't you have to chill the wort in order for all the solids to precipitate? What is the potential defect of letting more than 1ml per liter into the kettle?

 

[Bobby_M]

Aside from the bickering and of course the only "right" way, there are actually a few ways of skinning this cat. The two goals are not compacting the grain bed during lautering and not running the pump dry and losing prime (in the case of a batch sparge). Both of these can happen when the runoff is moved too quickly. Note, the ideal speed of runoff for quality or efficiency purposes is a completely different argument.

The compaction of the grain bed is directly related to the runoff speed whether that speed is a result of a gravity drain or a pumped removal. In other words, if a 2qt per minute runoff is enough to clog things up, I don't care how that runoff was achieved.Of course with a pump, the brewer can run the flow faster and make things worse.

Simply clamping down on the pump output with a valve is enough to combat this.

The second goal of not running the pump dry is a batch sparge issue only. One way you can handle this is to babysit it pretty closely and when you're at the point where you expect only another 2 quarts or so of runoff remains in the tun, you drastically reduce the flow to allow it to trickle down under the false bottom. If you run too fast, your pickup tube sucks air even though you still have wort hanging on to the grain for a short time.

As far as a grant is concerned, if it's installed below the tun, you can still have the problem of running off to quickly (INTO the grant). The trombone or I've seen it called an adjustable weir tube is way of moving the lauter grant to the same height as your sparge foundation water and in that sense, it almost acts like an autosparge float but it would require a float switch to cycle the pump on and off.

 

[organikbrewer]

The 1ml of sediment in a 1000ml is just a rule of thumb. It does not need to be cool, it just needs a few minutes to settle out. I wouldn't worry about it to much as a home brewer, you can just put a hop bag on the end of your tube to catch any particles. 15-20 minutes of recirculation usually does the trick. As far as solids getting into your kettle.

When conversion is complete, the mash will consist of a sugar solution called
wort and the husks of the malted barley. The purpose of wort separation is to
remove these husks and any other particles that are not wanted in the wort.
The husks and other particles contain tannin which is bitter and will make the
beer unstable after packaging. They also contain fatty substances like lipids
which will reduce head stability and will also make the beer go stale.
The objectives of effective wort separation are the removal of unwanted
material while at the same time extracting all the available wort.
Effective wort separation means:-
• Maximising extract recovery.
• Absence of particles in the wort.
• Absence of starch in the wort.
To achieve these objectives, wort separation systems use some common
principles:-
• Filtration using the husk as a fine filter supported by the slotted base of a
mash or lauter tun or a filter sheet in the case of a mash filter.
• Control of wort flow to ensure wort clarity and maximise filtration efficiency.
• Sparging with hot water to extract the maximum amount of soluble extract
(wort).
• Spent grain (waste husk) removal and disposal on completion of filtration.

As far as ways to skin the cat, yes there are different ways to do everything. But 100s of years of study and innovation has been devoted to brewing and modern brewing techniques are used because they are the best for quality and extract. Ideally you should have a very shallow tun with lots of surface area for the false bottom. For home brewers that is hard to do, so by using a trombone setup you are revealing the weight that is pressing upon the false bottom. I brewed a Saison yesterday and in a 1hr runoff I extracted 95% of the available extract. The proof is in the pudding.

Compaction is related to runoff speed, but also the quality of the grind, surface area of the false bottom and the depth of the mash bed.

A grant with float switches would be great but it's not necessary, the trombone can runoff directly into the kettle on a gravity system or it can be matched by adjusting your pump valve to match the flow rate coming out of the trombone.

 

[organikbrewer]

Does anyone know how to rotate photos on this site?