UniBrau 20 Gallon system - Brew Day and Questions

[Rik van den berg]

My first brew on my 20G Unibrau was a 5 gallon pale ale. I was trying to get my feet wet without running the risk of effin' up 10 gallons of beer.

I Pretty much winged my way through it. I "graduated" from a 3 vessel system with plastic coolers and a keggle so this one vessel setup it still very new. On my 5 gallon batch I:

• had a 12 lb grain bill
• started with 7.2 G of water
• Fly sparged
• went for a Target of 5 gallons in the fermenter at 1.056 OG.
• ended up with 3.5Gallons at 1.080 (!!!)
• Reverted back to my extract days and added 1.5 gallons of water to end up with that 1.056 gravity.
• The beer was meh..

Today, months later, I did a 10 gallon batch of Rye IPA. (Target 1.056). This beer has a 24.5 LB Grain bill. I decided to use Beer and BBQ Larry's spreadsheet for this one. I got my equipment profile dialed in as best I could and got a total water volume of 15.5 Gallons. Thinking we're basically doing a BIAB I dumped all the water in the pot and after dough in I had a total volume of 18.5 Gallons in the pot.

When I bought the Unibrau I decided to get the Blichmann Brew Commander in stead of the Unibrau controller. Happy I did, its really nice. Still learning on that one as well though. I did a two step sparge. 60 Min at 156 and then a 10min mash out at 168. After the 60 min the Brew Commander showed "ramp up" with a timer, which I mistakenly thought was the 10 min 168 timer. But instead, when it hit 168 it started that 10 min timer so I guess I ended up with an 80 minute mash..

After the mash I ended up with a 13.5 Preboil volume and a gravity of 1.047, which at the time I thought was pretty good. The 240V Unibrau got to a boil quickly and once it got to a rolling boil, I reduced the power to 80%. After a 60 minute boil I ended up with 11.5 Gallons which is a hefty 2 gallons boil off per hour. I got exactly 10 gallons in the fermenter with a 1.051 specific gravity, 5 points below target..

All in all a successful brew day despite the lower efficiency.. I did use a grain bill that I designed for my old 3 vessel system so I probably have to adjust it for this system. With that long mash and a continuous recirculation I would think that I sucked all the sugars out of those grains.

The Unibrau hop screen is a piece of crap. Clogs up like no other. I had to continually scrape it with a spoon.. the flow stopped the moment I stopped scraping..

For the seasoned Unibrau users: how do you do a 10 gallon batch with a higher grain bill or a 15 or even 20 gal batch? I Can't see how you would fit all that water and the larger grain bill in this 20 gallon pot. Do you add more water after you remove the grain basket?

I welcome 2 cent's, comments and answers!

 

[Benson Brewhouse]

I have a 20g Brau Supply kettle and basket with a custom steam condenser, and I also use a 220v Blichman BrewCommander with a 5500w element - sounds like we have a fairly similar setup.

I upgraded from a Brewzilla because I was sick of dealing with the volume limits of higher ABV beers - with that said I strictly brew 5 gallon batches, typically 5.5 to 6 gallons into the fermenter.

I've been brewing on it for a few months and I'm still slowly dialing in my equipment profile. Some things I can share that are hopefully helpful to you:

• mash efficiency out of the box is anywhere from 60-68% - you can get higher if you work for it
• max grain capacity is near 40lbs
• 5 gallon batches - you can pretty much go up to any grain amount, however sparging is difficult at this batch size because the deadspace under the basket is a whopping 3 gallons; there's also deadspace around the circumference of the basket but I'm not quite sure how to calculate that since this number fluctuates as you add more grain
• 10 gallon batches - this is the sweet spot; you should be able to do any ABV and sparging is easy
• 15 gallon batches - possible for lower ABV beers, but the mash will start to get very thick and lautering will be difficult
• 20 gallon batches - not possible
• Hop screen is known garbage; I use a hop spider for now. I'm going to look into a custom false bottom from NorCal brewing: Jaybird False Bottom Questions Answered by NorCal Brewing Solutions
• Setting up the BrewCommander correctly depends on your recirculation setup - there's a few advanced settings that need attention to get it perfectly dialed in, specifically: cycle time - I would change to 3 sec; SS offset - I had to change mine to 0.6°; Calibration - I'm still playing with this one to perfectly match the controller temp with the actual mash temp.
• Lastly, I would strongly suggest using the Brewfather Brewing software and get your equipment set up, it will tell you all the volume limits once you have everything set up

 

[Rik van den berg]

Thanks for your reply!

I like the idea of the NorCal brewing false bottom. I guess this would be a custom build though for the 20G kettle. Do you intend to use the Brau Supply dip tube still?

Thanks for the other suggestions and I'll look into the Brewfather software.

 

[n8huntsman]

On your 20 gallon baskets, are there supposed to be studs or lugs near the bottom to rest the basket on the top of the kettle? I have the upper lifting lugs but nothing on the bottom. It came with the octagon-ish shaped ring that sits on the kettle so I think I'm missing something on the basket.

 

[Benson Brewhouse]

On your 20 gallon baskets, are there supposed to be studs or lugs near the bottom to rest the basket on the top of the kettle? I have the upper lifting lugs but nothing on the bottom. It came with the octagon-ish shaped ring that sits on the kettle so I think I'm missing something on the basket.

No on the lugs. There was a test version with lugs just like the 10 gallon, but they ultimately decided not to release it. My assumption is they decided against the lugs since you absolutely need a pulley to lift the basket when it's full.

My 20 gallon came with the ring as well, I reached out to Brau Supply and they said those were sent by mistake and to just dispose of it - it serves no purpose without the lugs.