it's ALIVE! please check my procedure though

[hedge_87]

first off want to say thank you to all of you who take the time to write out your processes and builds to allow hacks like me to follow along.


So.. I've had a few year break from brewing. Long story short I started out with a basic extract brew kit I received as a gift for xmas or something, fell in love with the hobby and quickly moved to partial mash then BIAB. At this point we lived in a pretty small house with an unfinished basement that would work perfectly for an electric brewery. So I started gathering parts for an all electric setup (on the cheap cause Im a tight ass). Then life got busy and brewing got set up on the back burner until a couple of months ago when a friend of mine expressed interest. Now we have our first brew set for tomorrow.... He's stoked and I am nervously excited to try brewing with this new method I have never tried before. I have listed my procedure below and I would really appreciate any feedback on if I have this figured out or not.


1) fill HLT full of water and put appropriate volume of strike water in mash tun.
2) set temp at 150 kick back watch baseball and wait for the temp to rise (I know I'll have grains to measure and crush, fermenters to clean, and yeast to hydrate)
3)once temp is reached "dough in" and recirculate mash for 60 minutes.
4) after 60 minutes step mash up to 168 for mash out
5) reconfigure pumps to push wort into brew kettle and water from the HLT though the herms and into the mash tun "sparging".
6) boil that **** up while adding hops, drinking beers, smoking cigars, and telling lies.
7) chill to pitching temps pitch yeast set in fermentation fridge and then start cleaning **** up.

am I missing anything? I have a pretty good grasp on the general aspects of brewing just a little nervous about the new set up verses biab.

 

[GrainToGlass]

Welcome back! I would add in - Oxygenate after chilling to pitching temp.

 

[hedge_87]

ok.... Ive always been a little nervous about oxygenating the chilled wort. I don't have an air stone or anything. I do however have a hand held strainer. could i just run the chilled wort into that and let it splash to the bottom of the bucket?

 

[GrainToGlass]

Don't be nervous at all. I always oxygenate chilled wort with a stone and never had an infection. A strainer will work if you don't have many hops to clog the mesh. The common white plastic sparge piece at the end of the hose could work too. Afterwards you could shake the bucket back and forth for a couple minutes. I've never used buckets so I assume it might be awkward compared to shaking a carboy. Or try a mixing tool and be careful not to scratch the plastic.

 

[dyqik]

Just squeezing the end of the hose so it sprays into the bucket is reasonably effective for getting oxygen from the air into the beer. Although a bit more labor* intensive than a spray aerator.

If you're using (good) dry yeast and the gravity is moderate, you don't need to add much additional oxygen, if at all, anyway - there's enough stuff in the yeast granules for them to grow from.

*if you count holding the end of a hose as "labor"...

 

[TechyDork]

You may want to set your temp higher than 150. i assume you are targeting that as your mash temp. adding the grains to 150 water will drop hte temp down to 140 or lower. Not a biggie as your system will heat it back up to 150, but it will take some time.

I usually set my strike temp to about 10-12 degrees higher than my desired mash temp. then once i add the grains and am ready to start the mash, I set the HLT to 3-4 dgrees above my mash temp. I use HERMs coil in my HLT to maintain mash temp during while recirculating and find that on my system there is about a 4 degree difference between the set point of the HLT and the temp of the mash.

hope that helps and enjoy the brew day!!

 

[jddevinn]

Off topic but the recirculation pumps should be mounted horizontal, not in the vertical position per the manufacture. http://www.marchpump.com/site/files/966/104288/366945/746355/0750-0404-1000_R6.pdf

 

[jddevinn]

Sample of one of my recipe procedure check lists and P&ID are here

 

[hedge_87]

Off topic but the recirculation pumps should be mounted horizontal, not in the vertical position per the manufacture. http://www.marchpump.com/site/files/966/104288/366945/746355/0750-0404-1000_R6.pdf

that is why they are mounted on a scrap 2x6 and not a nice shiny chunk-o-stainless to match the rest of the brew stand (wasn't sure where or how I wanted them). Is there any other reason other than priming to not mount these pumps vertically? i had to switch the wort pump on and off a few times to get it to prime but after that no problems.

 

[hedge_87]

we had a major malfunction so I don't know how this beer will turn out. when we ran our wort into the brew kettle by running out of the mash tun to wort pump and then to the bottom drain of the BK to fill while running sparge wear though the Herms coil on top of the grain bed. anyway to make a long story short we hit our pre boil volume, shut the pumps off, and set the PID to manual to boil. Poured another beer waited for the hot break, added first hops, and started timer on 60 minute boil.... We forgot to close the bottom drain valve and slowly gravity feed though the pump for about 15 minutes. :smack:
completely missed our OG and ended up with only 4.5 gallons in the fermenter dammit.

 

[jddevinn]

that is why they are mounted on a scrap 2x6 and not a nice shiny chunk-o-stainless to match the rest of the brew stand (wasn't sure where or how I wanted them). Is there any other reason other than priming to not mount these pumps vertically? i had to switch the wort pump on and off a few times to get it to prime but after that no problems.

Honestly I do not know.... I just know that the very first line of the manufactures installation instructions say not to install vertically.

 

[hedge_87]

Honestly I do not know.... I just know that the very first line of the manufactures installation instructions say not to install vertically.

I hear you there, and thanks for the warning. Just didn't know if this was "Caution will cause death or serious injury" type instruction or Like where my 12 inch crescent wrench is stamped "do not use as a hammer" lol.

Checked on the beer this morning and it's fermenting well. Hopefully It will produce at least a drinkable beer. I think I also need to do some work on my false bottom of my mash tun. I used a $12.99 colander from amazon turned upside down and it worked well for filtering the grains and had no problems getting stuck. However, It is deep enough that my grain was not submerged like I would have liked. I'm pretty sure my efficiency suffered.

 

[TechyDork]

I hear you there, and thanks for the warning. Just didn't know if this was "Caution will cause death or serious injury" type instruction or Like where my 12 inch crescent wrench is stamped "do not use as a hammer" lol.

Checked on the beer this morning and it's fermenting well. Hopefully It will produce at least a drinkable beer. I think I also need to do some work on my false bottom of my mash tun. I used a $12.99 colander from amazon turned upside down and it worked well for filtering the grains and had no problems getting stuck. However, It is deep enough that my grain was not submerged like I would have liked. I'm pretty sure my efficiency suffered.

You could increase the volume of your strike water to allow the grain to be fully submerged during the mash. I like to keep an inch or so covering the grain while I recirculate during the mash. I found this helped with my efficiency.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

ok.... Ive always been a little nervous about oxygenating the chilled wort. I don't have an air stone or anything. I do however have a hand held strainer. could i just run the chilled wort into that and let it splash to the bottom of the bucket?

A $3 Home depot paint mixer works great and fast.It forms a vortex and you can hear the air getting sucked in.I make sure to wash it right away after mixing and hit it with Starsan before sticking it in the bucket.

 

[kombat]

we had a major malfunction [...] Poured another beer

Found your problem.

 

[jddevinn]

I hear you there, and thanks for the warning. Just didn't know if this was "Caution will cause death or serious injury" type instruction or Like where my 12 inch crescent wrench is stamped "do not use as a hammer" lol.

Checked on the beer this morning and it's fermenting well. Hopefully It will produce at least a drinkable beer. I think I also need to do some work on my false bottom of my mash tun. I used a $12.99 colander from amazon turned upside down and it worked well for filtering the grains and had no problems getting stuck. However, It is deep enough that my grain was not submerged like I would have liked. I'm pretty sure my efficiency suffered.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?p=4084197&highlight=vertical#post4084197

You can mount the pump verticaly...but the pump head needs to be on top of the motor. If you refer to another posting i made about pump orrientation you will see when the pump head is below the motor then you trap an air pocket in the rear housing. The pump will move liquid but the back end of it will be running dry in that air pocket and eventually cause you problems.

Looks like you are fine with your mounting....

 

[hedge_87]

Found your problem.

I know it. It didn't help we had several friends stop by throughout the process and I had to field 100's of questions and explain why some of their "helpful" bits of advice were not good ideas. I think I am going to try another batch early Sunday morning when I'm alone to see how it goes. I also like the paint stirrer idea Johnyrotten will have to give that a shot.

 

[hedge_87]

You could increase the volume of your strike water to allow the grain to be fully submerged during the mash. I like to keep an inch or so covering the grain while I recirculate during the mash. I found this helped with my efficiency.

my grain bill was ~9 lbs so I used 1.5 quarts per pound which comes up to 3.375 gallons. I don't have graduations marked on my kettles yet so I rounded up to 4 gallons and used my wife's 2 quart measuring cup to fill my strike water. this barely covered the colander. Would using more water effect efficiency or anything? I know when I did BIAB I always had good efficiency using my full preboil volume + grain absorption.

 

[TechyDork]

my grain bill was ~9 lbs so I used 1.5 quarts per pound which comes up to 3.375 gallons. I don't have graduations marked on my kettles yet so I rounded up to 4 gallons and used my wife's 2 quart measuring cup to fill my strike water. this barely covered the colander. Would using more water effect efficiency or anything? I know when I did BIAB I always had good efficiency using my full preboil volume + grain absorption.

Now that you have a false bottom and pumps and hoses you also need to account for dead space, the area below the grain bed, and loses in the hoses and in the MLT. It may just take you a few batches to dial it all in.

If your grain isn't fully covered with water then I would think your mash efficiency would suffer. I think that increasing your strike volume to fully cover the grains would also increase your efficiency. The colander probably has a large amount of dead space.

If you fly sparge I would mash with enough water to fully submerge the grain bed and then fly sprage until you hit your target pre-boil volume. If you batch sparge I would still mash with enough water to fully submerge the grain bed and then sparge with the remaining volume of water needed to reach pre-boil volume.

You could also collect a larger pre-boil volume and boil longer.

 

[dyqik]

The colander sounds like it's introducing a very large dead space. It's probably a good idea to replace it with a more regular false bottom with a lower dead space as soon as you can.

Meanwhile, I think it's reasonable to add the dead space to your strike volume, so the the grain bed is fully submerged and not compacted. You want to fill the dead space, and then go to 1 to 1.25 qt/lb on top of that. This should give you an inch or so of wort on top of the grain bed once it has set

Leaving grain sitting above the liquid means that that grain won't see much of the enzymes needed to convert it during the mash, hence the low efficiency.

For any water or mash pH calculation, you will need to work out the total mash liquor volume and use that as the volume.

 

[dmcman73]

You might be doing this already but just going to suggest it to cut down on some time in brewing:

1. Once your draining wort into your brew kettle, as soon as the element in the BK is submerged in wort, turn on the element to the brew kettle to start heating your wort. By the time you're done collecting wort, you'll be close, if not at, to boil.

2. As soon as your boiling and added your first addition of hops, start cleaning your mash tun. Again, cuts down on time rather than leaving everything to be cleaned at the end of a brew day.

3. Make a check list of your process, check off each item as you do it, such as "Close Brew kettle valve" or "Add hops 15 min before flame out", etc. It will prevent any forgotten steps.

Just some things that I found helpful on my brew day.