SABCO Brew Magic Questions

[wheatfieldbrewmaster]

I just purchased a used SABCO and did my first brew over the weekend. I used pellet hops in the brew and am having a difficult time cleaning them out of the chill wizard. Has anyone experienced this before and if so what work arounds have you included in the brewing process.

Also, going from 5 gallon to 10 gallon batches, can a yeast starter from one vial of yeast be produce to cover both 5 gallon batches or is this too much of a strain on the yeast.

Thanks...

 

[jbaysurfer]

I just purchased a used SABCO and did my first brew over the weekend. I used pellet hops in the brew and am having a difficult time cleaning them out of the chill wizard. Has anyone experienced this before and if so what work arounds have you included in the brewing process.

Also, going from 5 gallon to 10 gallon batches, can a yeast starter from one vial of yeast be produce to cover both 5 gallon batches or is this too much of a strain on the yeast.

Thanks...

Backflush the chiller with PBW solution. You can do 1 vial for 10G batches, you just need a big enough starter. In general, one vial will get you up to 4L of starter volume...but if it's old or you suspect it's been stressed, start w/ a 1L starter and step it up to 3-4L (this is all very generally speaking-use mrmalty.com to get exact starter sizes for the beers you'll be making)

 

[tootal]

I don't have a chill wizard but do use a Therminator with our Sabco. At flame out we add our last hops, if required, and start pumping back in the top to vorlauf. We are whirlpooling too. We vorlauf/whirlpool for 5 minutes to let the bed settle and to clarify the wort. We then switch the lines to run through the Therminator and back into the whirlpool. We whirlpool for another 15 minutes. This way the hop filter is taking out the cold break so it doesn't end up in the fermenter. After our total of 20 minutes of vorlauf/whirlpool/chilling we take the line from the whirlpool to the fermenter. We then hook up the back flush line to the Therminator and hit it with high pressure to blast any small hop particles out. We then run some Brewery Wash in there, flush it and sanitize it with what came out of the fermenter. Nice and clear wort and no large chunks of hops in the chiller.

 

[Doctor_M]

OP as others have said you need to backflush your plate chiller, you can probably go to your local hardware or plumbing supply store and rig up your own or you can buy one from an online store like morebeer http://morebeer.com/products/blichmann-therminator-chiller-backflush-hose-assembly.html
that paired with your hot water and pbw mix that you should already be using for your CIP process that you can run through your plate chiller should take care of the problem. Also if you haven't figured it out yet you should be using Saniclean not starsan through your brewmagic as it is non foaming. Last but not least congrats on getting a brewmagic, they are a dream to brew on!

I don't have a chill wizard but do use a Therminator with our Sabco. At flame out we add our last hops, if required, and start pumping back in the top to vorlauf. We are whirlpooling too. We vorlauf/whirlpool for 5 minutes to let the bed settle and to clarify the wort. We then switch the lines to run through the Therminator and back into the whirlpool. We whirlpool for another 15 minutes. This way the hop filter is taking out the cold break so it doesn't end up in the fermenter. After our total of 20 minutes of vorlauf/whirlpool/chilling we take the line from the whirlpool to the fermenter. We then hook up the back flush line to the Therminator and hit it with high pressure to blast any small hop particles out. We then run some Brewery Wash in there, flush it and sanitize it with what came out of the fermenter. Nice and clear wort and no large chunks of hops in the chiller.

Vorlauf is part of the mash process, at least according to the homebrewtalk wiki and pretty much everything I've read and heard on podcasts. What you are describing is whirlpooling, although I have been known to be wrong from time to time (OK a lot).

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Vorlauf

 

[ianw58]

Vorlauf, in this use, simply means "flow". It has come to mean recirculating wort through a filter bed to set the filter. By this definition, if you recirculated the wort, post-boil, through a false bottom of bed of hops, you could call it a vorlauft.

Relax. Don't worry. Have a homebrew. It'll be alright. I promise.

 

[tootal]

Here at the beer factory they pump the mash, after conversion, to the lautering tun. The lautering tun has rakes that keep the mash from sticking. Once the lautering tun is full they start the "vorlauf" pumps. I have actually rebuilt these pumps in the past. This recirculation clarifies the wort. Once running clear then the pumps send the wort to the kettle and the sparge water enters the lautering tun. The use of a separate lautering tun allows us to sparge while starting another mash in the mash tun allowing us to make more beer which saves money allowing cheaper beer prices. So the vorlauf is part of the mashing process but after the boil home brewers can do the same thing for the same reasons. Recirculate till running clear. I should probably stop using such terms and just say recirculate. It's just that after 30 years those old German brewing terms get entrenched in your head!

 

[tootal]

Since a picture is worth a thousand words!

 

[Warrior]

I'm brewing 24 gal batches and still use an immersion chiller. Takes me over an hour to chill the kettle. Going to be buying a duda diesel plate chiller and this is what I'm going to use after the pump and before the plate chiller. Should keep the particles small enough that it will not plug the plate chiller.

https://www.brewershardware.com/FILTER1.html

 

[ibbrewing2]

Hello all and thanks for this great thread. I recently purchased a brew magic along with the chill wizard and after clogging the chiller during my first batch, which I later back flushed to clear, I have since been using hops bags. I've been looking for a solution to this issue as I don't like the idea of my hops being constrained in a bag during boil, brings up notions of loss in utilization, but thus far until this thread I haven't been able to find a solid fix. I've read lots of threads with fixes but as anyone with a brew magic knows the set up is much different than a homemade brew house. Ok so as for my question, since the BT has a false bottom with a dip tube is the "whirlpool/vohrlof, which by my understanding focuses the hops partials and cold break into a center cone type formation, really very effective on a brew magic since the dip tube pulls fluid from the center of the BT? Second, if so is it the recirculation/whirlpool/vohrlof just set a better filter bed on the false bottom because it seems that the perforation size of the false bottom wouldn't be efficient in stopping small partials from passing though. But what do I know, I'm a noob on this system and hope someone can enlighten me cuz as I stated at the beginning my only solution was to use hops bags. Thanks for any replies!

 

[tootal]

I think the most important part is recirculation. Giving the false bottom a chance to collect the settled trub and hops forming a filter. Whirlpooling helps make it even and will make a nice cone in the middle, but that doesn't always happen. All I know is that after recirculating for five minutes the large particles have been trapped and we never have any problems clogging the therminator. With another ten minutes we are cool and clear. We never use hops bags no matter which hops we use. So recirculate for five minutes before hooking up your plate chiller and see if that doesn't do it for you.

 

[jbaysurfer]

Hello all and thanks for this great thread. I recently purchased a brew magic along with the chill wizard and after clogging the chiller during my first batch, which I later back flushed to clear, I have since been using hops bags. I've been looking for a solution to this issue as I don't like the idea of my hops being constrained in a bag during boil, brings up notions of loss in utilization, but thus far until this thread I haven't been able to find a solid fix. I've read lots of threads with fixes but as anyone with a brew magic knows the set up is much different than a homemade brew house. Ok so as for my question, since the BT has a false bottom with a dip tube is the "whirlpool/vohrlof, which by my understanding focuses the hops partials and cold break into a center cone type formation, really very effective on a brew magic since the dip tube pulls fluid from the center of the BT? Second, if so is it the recirculation/whirlpool/vohrlof just set a better filter bed on the false bottom because it seems that the perforation size of the false bottom wouldn't be efficient in stopping small partials from passing though. But what do I know, I'm a noob on this system and hope someone can enlighten me cuz as I stated at the beginning my only solution was to use hops bags. Thanks for any replies!

I hope this thread continues. I have recently received a brew magic and have yet to brew on it, so having an HBT support thread for users, by users would be pretty nice, especially since the officialy support thread is Facebook and I don't do face book. Will report back in 2 weeks after I brew my first batch on it.

 

[ibbrewing2]

I think the most important part is recirculation. Giving the false bottom a chance to collect the settled trub and hops forming a filter. Whirlpooling helps make it even and will make a nice cone in the middle, but that doesn't always happen. All I know is that after recirculating for five minutes the large particles have been trapped and we never have any problems clogging the therminator. With another ten minutes we are cool and clear. We never use hops bags no matter which hops we use. So recirculate for five minutes before hooking up your plate chiller and see if that doesn't do it for you.

I'll have to give that a try on my next brew session. I just don't like the idea of using a hops bag or some other sort of devise to manage my break/hops material.


Brewing up something special 🍻🍻🍻

 

[ibbrewing2]

+1 on the HBT brew magic thread!


Brewing up something special 🍻🍻🍻

 

[Doctor_M]

I'm all for having a dedicated brew magic thread on hbt, I will add that there is www.brewmagiciansforum.com but activity is pretty slow.

 

[doghausdev]

I think the most important part is recirculation. Giving the false bottom a chance to collect the settled trub and hops forming a filter. Whirlpooling helps make it even and will make a nice cone in the middle, but that doesn't always happen. All I know is that after recirculating for five minutes the large particles have been trapped and we never have any problems clogging the therminator. With another ten minutes we are cool and clear. We never use hops bags no matter which hops we use. So recirculate for five minutes before hooking up your plate chiller and see if that doesn't do it for you.

I think this is exactly what I need to do on my BM, but can you please explain how you do it? Are you pumping from the BK back to the MT?

 

[tootal]

We pump from the bottom of the kettle to the top of the kettle. We run to a T and have a couple of curved lines offset so one is pumping one direction and the other one going the other direction so it does a whirlpool. This is not really necessary but does help a little. The main thing is to pump from under the false bottom back into the top. Don't splash the wort going back in the top. After five minutes of recirculation then connect the line going to the top to the chiller. Run the line from the chiller back to the top of the kettle. As you form cold break the hops will filter it out and after about 10-15 minutes you will be pitching temps, cold break filtered and ready to take the line out of the kettle and into your fermentor. Right now we are just moving our hoses around, someday I'd like to get it all hard plumbed in stainless so we just have to turn a few valves and not worry about hot wort burning you fingers! We do wear gloves but you get my point.

 

[Hunting]

I would not buy a filter, just get one of these instead. Works a charm and a cinch to clean too.