I’m in the middle of my first AG brew. Everything seems to be going well, and this BrewZilla is really nice to use. I’m curious about a few things as I go.
1. Does it matter where you place the recirculation tube during mashing? I just made sure it was under the surface so there was no splashing, and I had it at half throttle. I’m wondering whether I might use the top screen next time to get more even recirculation.
2. I saw a video where someone recirculated the wort into the kettle during sparging by placing the tube in the gap between the malt pipe and side of the kettle. I did this, but I’m not sure what purpose it serves.
3. When I lifted the malt pipe to sparge, I expected the liquid level to remain above the grain bed a bit, and the wort to slowly drain out the bottom and into the kettle. Well, it just gushed out the bottom and I couldn’t stop the top of the grain bed drying out. I sparged as quick as I could using a jug out of my sparge pot. I used about 12.5 litres of water and was done in less than 10 minutes when I reached my pre-boil volume. I’ve heard about stuck sparges and that you should sparge slowly over an hour or whatever. Is what happened here with me typical of others experiences when sparging?
4. I’m trying to set a good boil rate. For 65 litre operators, what heaters are you using for the boil? I tried the 2000W only, and that seemed to wind down after a while. I’ve got the 2000W and 1000W running at the moment. The boil seems ok. Obviously I could turn on all the heaters and thrash the boil, but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea.
Thanks.