I am just moving to all grain and am looking for suggestions on how to best set my system up. I have been brewing 5 gallon extract batches in my basement about once or twice a month for a few years now. Here is what I have:
Burner: 1 Avantco ic3500 Induction cook top
BK: Bayou Classic 10-gal with two ball valves for whirlpooling, thermometer and Reflectix rap.
HLT: Rubbermaid 10-gal with two ball valves for whirlpooling while chilling, thermometer and sight glass.
MT: Rubbermaid 10-gal with 12” false bottom, thermometer and Blichmann Auto Sparge
Immersion Chiller: 25’ of ½” copper
Pumps: 2 Chugger Pump SS-Inline
Mill: Cereal Killer
I have been using a 3 tier gravity set-up where I would only heat the strike water, pump it to the MT and while mashing heat the sparge water and then pump it up to the HLT. I would then move the BK off the burner and open the valve to the auto sparge and crack the valve on the MT to fly sparge for about 60 to 90 min. I would then lift the BK back to the burner. I have been hitting about 83% efficiency for my batches that take less then around 12 pounds of grain.
I wanted to move to a 2 tier and add some control over my mash temp. The mash temp has not been falling much but I like high gravity beers and have not dialed in my temps all that well and want to way to make corrections. I now heat all of my water 1st and then pump my strike water through my immersion chiller / heat exchanger set in the BK into my MT. I then move the pump intake to the MT and continue to heat the sparge water in the BK and use the pump to control the temp in the MT. When I am ready to sparge I move the pump intake back to the BK. I collect to wort by gravity into the HLT cooler and once the sparge is done I then pump the wort back up to the BK.
For cooling I fill my HLT with three 5lb blocks of ice and a little water and use one pump to drive the chiller and one pump to whirlpool my BK. It cools quickly.
Since I have two pumps and only one burner, should I move to a 1 tier system? I want to cut down on my brew time but don’t want to drop my current efficiency. I would like to start heating my wort as soon as I start the sparge. How much if any efficiency would I loose by going to a two vessel set up and using the 2nd pump to pump the wort back into the BK with the sparge water? Could I crank up the burner to max while reticulating the wort with the sparge water?
One thing to consider is the type of beer I like, for example one of my favorite extract kits was the Midwest Hop Head. It comes with 9.15 lb of DME and 1.5 lb of grain. I would add an additional 2.5 lbs of DME and double the bittering hops. It gave me about a 1.083 starting gravity. To make the same beer all grain I am going to add 3 lbs of 2 row for a total of 18.5 lbs. If I used my regular water to grain ratios I would need 15 gallons in my 10 gallon BK. I am going to start with 9.5 gallons and strike with 5.8 gallons, sparge with only 3.7 gal and loose 2.2 gallons in my grain for 7.3 gallons of wort. I will then boil it down to 6 gallons which should take about 96 min. I don’t know what kind of efficiency numbers I am going to hit but will have some DME on hand to get to my 1.08+
Sorry for the long post, but I know there are people reading this who are way smarter then me.
One last though – budget is not much of an issue but I want to keep the system simple. Would I benefit by moving to a one tier system and upgrading my HLT to a stainless kettle with built in heating coil and built in heat exchanger? I could run a 2nd 220 outlet to my brew table. I like my induction burner but I don’t think I could hook it up to a PID if I ever wanted to go down that road.
Thanks,
David
Burner: 1 Avantco ic3500 Induction cook top
BK: Bayou Classic 10-gal with two ball valves for whirlpooling, thermometer and Reflectix rap.
HLT: Rubbermaid 10-gal with two ball valves for whirlpooling while chilling, thermometer and sight glass.
MT: Rubbermaid 10-gal with 12” false bottom, thermometer and Blichmann Auto Sparge
Immersion Chiller: 25’ of ½” copper
Pumps: 2 Chugger Pump SS-Inline
Mill: Cereal Killer
I have been using a 3 tier gravity set-up where I would only heat the strike water, pump it to the MT and while mashing heat the sparge water and then pump it up to the HLT. I would then move the BK off the burner and open the valve to the auto sparge and crack the valve on the MT to fly sparge for about 60 to 90 min. I would then lift the BK back to the burner. I have been hitting about 83% efficiency for my batches that take less then around 12 pounds of grain.
I wanted to move to a 2 tier and add some control over my mash temp. The mash temp has not been falling much but I like high gravity beers and have not dialed in my temps all that well and want to way to make corrections. I now heat all of my water 1st and then pump my strike water through my immersion chiller / heat exchanger set in the BK into my MT. I then move the pump intake to the MT and continue to heat the sparge water in the BK and use the pump to control the temp in the MT. When I am ready to sparge I move the pump intake back to the BK. I collect to wort by gravity into the HLT cooler and once the sparge is done I then pump the wort back up to the BK.
For cooling I fill my HLT with three 5lb blocks of ice and a little water and use one pump to drive the chiller and one pump to whirlpool my BK. It cools quickly.
Since I have two pumps and only one burner, should I move to a 1 tier system? I want to cut down on my brew time but don’t want to drop my current efficiency. I would like to start heating my wort as soon as I start the sparge. How much if any efficiency would I loose by going to a two vessel set up and using the 2nd pump to pump the wort back into the BK with the sparge water? Could I crank up the burner to max while reticulating the wort with the sparge water?
One thing to consider is the type of beer I like, for example one of my favorite extract kits was the Midwest Hop Head. It comes with 9.15 lb of DME and 1.5 lb of grain. I would add an additional 2.5 lbs of DME and double the bittering hops. It gave me about a 1.083 starting gravity. To make the same beer all grain I am going to add 3 lbs of 2 row for a total of 18.5 lbs. If I used my regular water to grain ratios I would need 15 gallons in my 10 gallon BK. I am going to start with 9.5 gallons and strike with 5.8 gallons, sparge with only 3.7 gal and loose 2.2 gallons in my grain for 7.3 gallons of wort. I will then boil it down to 6 gallons which should take about 96 min. I don’t know what kind of efficiency numbers I am going to hit but will have some DME on hand to get to my 1.08+
Sorry for the long post, but I know there are people reading this who are way smarter then me.
One last though – budget is not much of an issue but I want to keep the system simple. Would I benefit by moving to a one tier system and upgrading my HLT to a stainless kettle with built in heating coil and built in heat exchanger? I could run a 2nd 220 outlet to my brew table. I like my induction burner but I don’t think I could hook it up to a PID if I ever wanted to go down that road.
Thanks,
David
