new eBrewing setup, eBIAB or eHerms?

[marjen]

So I did my first brew day on the new setup last night. Ended up using the exchilerator as an external herms coil based on all the comments here. That worked just fine. One BIG issue I had however was very low pre boil effiency. Was supposed to be 1.041 and end up 1.024. Never had an issue like that before. Looking for advise on what could have gone wrong. Here is what i did.

Heated water in Mash tun by recirculating through the herms coil. Got to 160 strike temp and doughed in. I kept the pumps running and heat going, was this my mistake? The mash then recirculated through the coil for 60 mins. When done I transferred to kettle. Once there did a reading and saw how low it was, so I transferred back and let it go for like another 30 mins, did not see any difference. Finally gave up, added a bunch of sugar and called it a day. OG ended up around 1.050.

Thinking maybe it was start of mash where i messed up?

 

[bgmac]

So I did my first brew day on the new setup last night. Ended up using the exchilerator as an external herms coil based on all the comments here. That worked just fine. One BIG issue I had however was very low pre boil effiency. Was supposed to be 1.041 and end up 1.024. Never had an issue like that before. Looking for advise on what could have gone wrong. Here is what i did.

Heated water in Mash tun by recirculating through the herms coil. Got to 160 strike temp and doughed in. I kept the pumps running and heat going, was this my mistake? The mash then recirculated through the coil for 60 mins. When done I transferred to kettle. Once there did a reading and saw how low it was, so I transferred back and let it go for like another 30 mins, did not see any difference. Finally gave up, added a bunch of sugar and called it a day. OG ended up around 1.050.

Thinking maybe it was start of mash where i messed up?

If your temps never went above 160 then keeping the pumps running wasn't the issue. Enzymatic activity should stay active until 170F or above. Were you keeping an eye on your MT temps throughout the whole mash? I would think it would be difficult to keep constant temps with manual pump operations. Did the wort maybe get too hot in the herms coil to kill off the enzymes maybe? Just some thoughts. 1.024 is way low, grain crush size? Mash PH issues?

 

[marjen]

I crushed the grains myself which i always do. Don’t belieave i had any ph issues. I kept an eye on the temps and they seemed fine the entire time. I will say for about 40% of my grain bill I used some 2-3 year old grains but they were in a sealed 5 gallon bucket. However last summer they were in a storage unit that got hot at times. Not sure if that could have anything to do with it.

 

[bgmac]

I crushed the grains myself which i always do. Don’t belieave i had any ph issues. I kept an eye on the temps and they seemed fine the entire time. I will say for about 40% of my grain bill I used some 2-3 year old grains but they were in a sealed 5 gallon bucket. However last summer they were in a storage unit that got hot at times. Not sure if that could have anything to do with it.

Did you see any evidence of weevils in your old grain that was stored hot? pretty much all grain have weevil larvae present unless it is roasted at high temps recently. They can eat through grain pretty quick and cause it to loose starch viability. The grain will pretty much look whole because the bugs get inside the husks. I have seen weevils cause low OG before. Weevils have a tendency to hatch in grain stored above 70F. This is a far fetched possibility but possible. Weevils just add more protein to the finished product that is boiled so no harm to humans. But gross to think about.

 

[marjen]

Never heard of weevils, didnt see anything strange. They smelled fine. Not sure if that matters. Interestingly enough if i deleted the portion of the grain bill that matches the amount of old grain my calculator says pre boil would be 1.024 which is exactly what i had, so thinking it could have been bad old grains. I guess we will find out next brew day if i use new grains and have any issues or not.

 

[brianccarr]

So I did my first brew day on the new setup last night. Ended up using the exchilerator as an external herms coil based on all the comments here. That worked just fine. One BIG issue I had however was very low pre boil effiency. Was supposed to be 1.041 and end up 1.024. Never had an issue like that before. Looking for advise on what could have gone wrong. Here is what i did.

Heated water in Mash tun by recirculating through the herms coil. Got to 160 strike temp and doughed in. I kept the pumps running and heat going, was this my mistake? The mash then recirculated through the coil for 60 mins. When done I transferred to kettle. Once there did a reading and saw how low it was, so I transferred back and let it go for like another 30 mins, did not see any difference. Finally gave up, added a bunch of sugar and called it a day. OG ended up around 1.050.

Thinking maybe it was start of mash where i messed up?

I have an almost identical setup but not using an external heat exchanger. I have a Blichmann Thermonater that I use for chilling so it would be very simple for me to add this in as an external heat exchanger. Where do you put your temperature probe for your pid controller in this setup? Currently I have mine coming out of the boil kettle outlet. If I put it on the mash outlet then I would have to move it over to the boil kettle for boiling.

 

[brianccarr]

I have an almost identical setup but not using an external heat exchanger. I have a Blichmann Thermonater that I use for chilling so it would be very simple for me to add this in as an external heat exchanger. Where do you put your temperature probe for your pid controller in this setup? Currently I have mine coming out of the boil kettle outlet. If I put it on the mash outlet then I would have to move it over to the boil kettle for boiling.

I see the answer in post #12; the mash side.

 

[Christopher Barbee]

Biggest efficiency gain you’ll get with BIAB is grain crush. Buy a mill and set it up. I have a 10 gallon kettle and still use a cooler with a brew bag. My efficiency was all over the place until I got a mill. Best purchase I made. Very consistent 69% BHE.

 

[BrunDog]

Water and pH will make a difference too.

 

[brianccarr]

Recirculating constantly runs the same wort through grain bed, so its continually filtering and improving. Once you take that work to an intermediate holding place like the kettle, the cloudy stuff has a place to stay/settle and not necessarily get recirculated back to the mash tun.

Again, probably not a deal breaker IMO... some swear clear wort matters. So if clear wort is what you are after, you cannot compare K-rims or BIAB to a legit MLT.

Could the cloudy wort issue here not be solved by moving the water in the BK over to the MT at the end of the mash? That way the entire volume would pass through the grain bed one final time as it's all pumped back over to the BK. Maybe even just recirculate the entire volume at the end of the mash.

 

[BrunDog]

I'm not quite visualizing what you are saying... but it sounds ok.

 

[brianccarr]

I'm not quite visualizing what you are saying... but it sounds ok.

In a Kettle-Rims set up, there needs to be enough water in the boil kettle to at least cover the heating element. In an “infinity loop” recirculating between the two kettles, my understanding from reading this thread is that you might NOT filter all the wort through the grain bed thus leading to cloudy wort in the boil kettle. So my thoughts are, can you not move the water that is covering the element in the BK (that is probably cloudy), back over to the mash tun, recirculate (hopefully clearing the wort further) and then transfer all the wort back over to the boil kettle. Sorry if I’m not clear.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

In a Kettle-Rims set up, there needs to be enough water in the boil kettle to at least cover the heating element. In an “infinity loop” recirculating between the two kettles, my understanding from reading this thread is that you might NOT filter all the wort through the grain bed thus leading to cloudy wort in the boil kettle. So my thoughts are, can you not move the water that is covering the element in the BK (that is probably cloudy), back over to the mash tun, recirculate (hopefully clearing the wort further) and then transfer all the wort back over to the boil kettle. Sorry if I’m not clear.

You could if you turned off the element. You could pump the kettle dry, putting it all in the MT (assuming sufficient space in the MT), ensure there's no gunk in the kettle, then vorlauf until it runs clear (should be clear right away since you've been recirculating the whole time), and finally drain back to the kettle for the boil.

I still don't understand how you can't vorlauf before beginning recirculation. If you can vorlauf from a cooler MLT to get clear wort and then drain to a kettle, I don't understand why you can't do the same in a K-RIMS system. Initially you could just recirculate from the MT to the MT until it runs clear, then move the hose that's returning to the MT to the kettle and begin the full recirculation. That's probably overkill given that I only needed to run 2-4 quarts to get clear wort from my cooler MT when I used it with a bazooka filter. If you only send clear wort to the kettle, it's not clear to me how you ever have wort that's not clear in your kettle.

 

[brianccarr]

Unfortunately, no good pics. Does this sketch help? Basically you just use your chiller instead of a HERMs coil to exchange heat with water.

Another advantage of this set up is that you don't have to keep a whole bunch of water in the HLT just to cover HERMs coils. You need just enough to cover the heating elements in the HLT/BK. That means your heating response time during the mash should be much improved.

Personally, I measure the wort return temp to the MT instead of the traditional way of messages the HLT in a standard HERMs design. I can do this because there is never more than a few degrees differential between the HLT and MT, and because the thermal mass in the HLT is small due to the fact that I only need enough water to cover the elements, which is about 3 gallons in my set up.

TexasWine, I think I'm going to give this a try. Are you putting the PID temp probe after the "wort out" of the chiller before it returns back into the mash tun? I am going to try with my Blichmann Thermanator. Thanks

 

[TexasWine]

TexasWine, I think I'm going to give this a try. Are you putting the PID temp probe after the "wort out" of the chiller before it returns back into the mash tun? I am going to try with my Blichmann Thermanator. Thanks

Yes.

If using a plate exchanger, be mindful of grain bits getting into the exchanger passes. I recommend using a bag in the MLT if you are going this route.