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If I am brewing a medium to strong beer (4+ Kg of grain), then I kind of have to add some water in addition to the volume of my mash tun (or rather, the internal pipe of the braumeister) if I want 19 liters or more beer (to, for instance, fill a keg). Might as well sparge with said water, even if it's just 3L or so.
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Jul 13, 2018 18:41
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One of my friends helps out with a local distillery and he talked to them about buying barrels. Got one delivered today, 10 gallons: Purple stave means bourbon for a year. Orange stave means corn whiskey for 2 years. The corn whiskey was dumped today. Need to free up 2 days for brewing something.
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Jul 13, 2018 21:45
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cyberbug posted:If you're good at squeezing the bag and therefore not pulling out a lot of OG wort along with the grains, it's probably not that much of an efficiency loss to not sparge. However, the only time I tried no-sparge BIAB, the final volume in the fermentor was just miserable compared to what I could do when doing a sparge. Sounds like you just need a bigger pot. Sparging shouldn't increase your volumes -- if you do no sparge, increase the mash volume to compensate for the lack of sparge liquid. I brew 5 gallon batches and use a 15 gallon pot and kettle. I usually end the boil with about 7 gallons, put about 6 in the fermenter, and keg 5. Glottis fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Jul 14, 2018 |
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Jul 13, 2018 23:54
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Myron Baloney posted:I would also call a 4-hour infusion mash similar or greater in the "bullshit" dimension to the average double decoction. I knew that my 4 hour mash was going to get some poo poo. I've been warned that I will receive "letters" on this topic. I am not suggesting that this is critical to a great Pils (or any beer). If I were saying that a 4 hour mash was necessary to make great beer, then I'd be totally with you - that's "bullshit". However, I think that when someone asks you what you did (as the AHA does) you should be honest, so I was, and the Brewer's Friend recipe is what I did. I've seen debates surrounding the issue of whether or not a super long mash (like 4 hours) will extract harsh tannins, etc. etc. etc., so I thought my beer would be a useful data point. I mash for 4 hours frequently because I'm trying to fit brewing into a normal weekend and sometimes I get stuck on some unrelated errand and I don't get home to run-off to the kettle until it's been some ridiculous amount of time, like 4 hours. What's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would my Pils have the appropriately dry finish for a Pils at such low IBUs without the subtle astringency from a 4 hour mash?
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Jul 14, 2018 05:52
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cladinshadows posted:I knew that my 4 hour mash was going to get some poo poo. I've been warned that I will receive "letters" on this topic. I'm not convinced a long mash necessarily gives you greater tannin extraction, but if it does I'd totally be down with that. Tannins get a bad rap, but are often an important way of adding structure to very dry styles such as Saison, especially low-alcohol varieties (most get them from large amounts of low AA hops or oak though).
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Jul 14, 2018 11:00
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cladinshadows posted:I knew that my 4 hour mash was going to get some poo poo. I've been warned that I will receive "letters" on this topic. I'm not criticizing it at all, I was contrasting it to the perceived trouble of doing decoctions. Without electric control I'd have a much more difficult time keeping at 151F for four hours than I would doing a triple decoction. If it works, and it plainly did,, I'm all for it.
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Jul 14, 2018 13:01
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I've posted pics here of the adapter I modeled and printed to get a larger hopper on my Cereal Killer mill. I managed to break it a little bit on my last brew day, and I was not 100% happy with the design, so I went to the trouble of building a new model. It came out pretty much exactly like the old model. I guess I am just unhappy over nothing, and I am going to have to live with it. I'm printing one last partial prototype now to check fit, and then I will tweak the slicer settings and print the final version. Here's the broken one: Update - the print job failed, but it got far enough that I found some flaws in the model. I rebuilt the model, and now I am printing a prototype for fit. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Jul 15, 2018 |
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Jul 14, 2018 18:19
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Is there a reason you didn't make a shroud that fits on top of the existing hopper to extend it?
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Jul 16, 2018 05:52
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Good to know that it's not perfect. I'm still going to print a copy and see how it does for me, just probably not until fall sometime. I think you probably do more grain at a time than I do so I'm hoping it lasts longer.Glottis posted:Is there a reason you didn't make a shroud that fits on top of the existing hopper to extend it? The existing hopper on the cereal killer (what that fits) isn't very sturdy and you can just pop a better bottle fermenter full of grain right on top of that. So that triples or quadruples the capacity of it. The original works, but it's thin metal and even with threadlock mine likes to pop out and that's just doing the 7# that it can handle.
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Jul 16, 2018 15:34
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Glottis posted:Is there a reason you didn't make a shroud that fits on top of the existing hopper to extend it? I don't have the tools or skills for sheet metal work. And while I know people who do, I wanted an excuse to mess around with the 3D printer. Also, this adapter uses a Fermonster PET fermenter as the hopper itself. Of course, that means buying the fermenter, but that cost is pretty reasonable - and aluminum sheet, rivets, etc., aren't free either. And honestly, the supplied hopper has some design elements that make it pretty iffy for a taller or heavier setup. All in, the hopper + adapter I put together will hold about 35 pounds of grain, which is enough for most of my batches without having to refill - and only one refill for my largest batches. I used a 7-gallon fermenter to get that capacity, but smaller sizes are available for people who don't need that much. So I could have found a way to extend the existing hopper, but I just chose to do it this way instead.
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Jul 16, 2018 16:22
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Turns out, after getting my keg lines dialed in, this Beer Gun works like a fuckin champ and I love it. I had 2 kegs with an indeterminate amount in them and needed room, so I bottled what was left of both. Less than a half hour setup and teardown included and got way way better results than I used to. Oh just for extra fun, this is right up the road from me: https://thetakeout.com/brewery-names-beers-flint-michigan-tap-water-black-1827625950 robotsinmyhead fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Jul 16, 2018 |
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Jul 16, 2018 21:20
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robotsinmyhead posted:Turns out, after getting my keg lines dialed in, this Beer Gun works like a fuckin champ and I love it. I had 2 kegs with an indeterminate amount in them and needed room, so I bottled what was left of both. Less than a half hour setup and teardown included and got way way better results than I used to. Which beer gun did you buy? The Blichmann just looks like it's a bit expensive, so I'm being wishywashy about  . I'm in the same boat right now and I have my kegs a bit too full and I want to package my next beer. It's less than a dozen bottles in each of two kegs, but that's still a lot of beer to drink. One is a cider, so I may just do it with some plastic on the end of the picnic tap, but it's not even close to ideal. I just want to package this Kentucky Common because I want to drink it while it's still hot outside (the saison in the other keg is good, but I want something else too).Breweries don't need to be edgy. A better way to draw attention to something is to just name your beer something normal and then make sure everyone knows that you're donating some of that profit to whatever cause.
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Jul 16, 2018 21:48
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Jhet posted:Which beer gun did you buy? The Blichmann just looks like it's a bit expensive, so I'm being wishywashy about Blichmann Beergun 2. Pricey, but buy once cry once. I don't see this thing breaking ever. I was trying to make the same point about their names. There's a longer interview with the local paper, and they make a point that they want their beer names to be "the topic of conversation" or whatever, but hard politics and social justice aren't at the top of conversation starters when I'm trying to relax. If they focused on one thing, great, but what they're doing is a good foot over the line of Edgelord territory and they're lining up to be a gimmick. OFC they're doubling down under scrutiny and not really taking the advice of even established microbrewers in the area.
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Jul 16, 2018 21:57
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I'm getting around to putting an order list together for my stand. 15g Generic HLT, 20g Generic Brew Kettle (anything with a tri-clad bottom), but spending a bit of scratch on a decent 15g mashtun - I'm looking at this brew kettle + the associated false bottom and mash re-circulation manifold I'd need to add a weldless thermometer port (?) somewhere under the false bottom to monitor mash temp for the PLC to refire. Does that sound right? Ideally, HLT will have a thermometer port and low-side fitting to hook up to the pump to run strike water from the HLT to the Mash Tun, then reconfigure the pump to run up the manifold and do constant recirc during the whole mash process. Since the mashtun will have direct fire and PLC control for heat maintenance, I need a way to keep the mash temp consistent within the vessel. Currently, I've shelved plans for a HERMS/RIMS setup. Is the overkill? After that, reconfigure the pump to pull from under the false bottom and pump over to the kettle (weldless top fitting) for boil. After boil, I'll either just throw a cooling coil into the BK, or gravity pull the wort out of the lower fitting into the HLT and chill from there. robotsinmyhead fucked around with this message at 14:32 on Jul 17, 2018 |
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Jul 17, 2018 14:23
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3D printing update: I finally got a bunch of issues worked out (some with the model, some with the filament), and I got a good, complete print overnight. I took some pictures, and I should be able to get them uploaded later today and make a post showing off the new model. I'm excited. It fits the mill and the hopper perfectly. Edit: Pics! Here's the mill on the mill cart. The adapter needs to go into the mouth of that. You can also see the 3D printed riser and half-coupler, both in red. Those are still great, no need to replace them in this effort.  Here's what needs to go in the other end of the adapter, a threaded PET Fermonster. I used a 7-gallon Fermonster, but Morebeer also has them in 1, 3, and 6 gallon sizes if you want a smaller hopper. Figure on five pounds of grain per gallon, so a 3-gallon hopper would let you get 15 pounds in, which would be about double the size of the supplied Cereal Killer hopper.  So basically, I need to do this:  Here's my first test piece, just to check I had the size right in the mill. Terrible retraction settings made it all scabby there at the corner, but I fixed that later.  Here's the second test piece, to check the depth of the insert...  ... and the mouunting holes  The third test checks the threads to make sure they work...  ... and they do.  Here's the final print right off the printer:  Down the throat, showing the threads:  Mounting holes:  Threading it onto the hopper:  And snugged up:  Dropped onto the mill, showing the mounting holes:  And fully seated:  Mounting hardware tightened down:  And the final product:  This one feels a little more robust than the old one. Being 3D printed, it's not ever going to be as strong as a metal part, but this model just fits in the mouth of the mill better and is more rigid than the old one. In particular, the old one (at least off my printer) has a place in the sides where there are some elements that are right next to each other, but aren't really fused together into one solid piece like they should be. I did all the design in Tinkercad, sliced in Cura, and printed on a Monoprice printer. So if anyone wants the new STL, either to replace one I sent you earlier or as new interest, just send me your email via PM and I will send it to you. I will point out that, because I fixed the fit in the mouth of the mill, the new model is 151 mm long, so it may not fit on some smaller printers. You could probably just trim off half a millimeter of each outrigger to make it fit on a 150 mm print plate if you wanted to. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Jul 17, 2018 |
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Jul 17, 2018 15:48
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Jo3sh posted:Mounting hardware tightened down: Do the bits extending over the rollers have any flex to them? I'd be concerned about grain pressing them down into the rollers during a mill session, causing the fins to erode away and add delicious plastic to your mash bill.
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Jul 18, 2018 16:02
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Nth Doctor posted:Do the bits extending over the rollers have any flex to them? I'd be concerned about grain pressing them down into the rollers during a mill session, causing the fins to erode away and add delicious plastic to your mash bill. Not appreciably. They aren't just flat, sloping springboards, but the top faces of triangular prism shapes. There's a cross-section below so you can see what I am talking about. Also, the old one I took out shows zero evidence of contact with the rollers. EDIT: A little thumbnail arithmetic: each of those prism shapes has a top surface area of about five square inches. Even if the entire hopper-load of 35 pounds of grain bore exclusively on those two surfaces, that's only about 3.5 psi, which is not a lot. I have wrenched and twisted and pressed on the old adapter with my hands and by pressing it on a table - it made some noises that it never made while in use, which suggests I put way more force on it than the grain ever did, but the edges that extended over the rollers did not flex very much. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 16:16
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I like the look of that. I may do something similar myself. What software did you use to design it?
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Jul 18, 2018 17:26
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I did all the design in Tinkercad. Free is a heck of a price.
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Jul 18, 2018 17:31
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How hard was it to do the screw portion? I tried playing around with Autodesk and don't feel like teaching myself all the ins and outs of it. I got a message from a few homebrew friends that our local shop may be closing and that the owner is looking to either sell it or close it altogether. We as a group had a discussion about forming some kind of partnership to purchase it. Right now we're waiting to hear about what his finances are like etc. One thing I had thought about was forming some kind of co-op for cheap purchasing of grain, hops, etc. Has anyone ever joined a co-op? I know there is CHAOS homebrew club in Chicago but they seem to be more oriented on the equipment and not consumable section of it.
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Jul 18, 2018 18:46
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calandryll posted:How hard was it to do the screw portion? Not particularly hard. Using a caliper, I measured the major and minor diameters and the pitch of the thread on the fermenter. Then I used the thread generator in Tinkercad to make a thread that had the right pitch but was too large in diameter. Then I made a tube with the ID set to the major diameter of the threads on the fermenter, plus a little slop. I turned the tube into a hole and used it to remove the excess diameter from the thread. Then I turned the threadform into a hole and used it to remove the thread shape from the inside of another tube. Tinkercad is way more limited than a real 3D design tool like Fusion 360, but it seems to work pretty well with the way I think about making shapes by adding and subtracting shapes. It can take some doing to get things done, and There are some things I wish it had, but it's overall not bad. Sometimes you kind of have to work backward to figure out how to get from a shape you want to make to a way to assemble it from other positive and negative shapes. If nothing else, it's given me a lot of respect for people who do this to make real things, not just loving around with toys.
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Jul 18, 2018 19:05
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Any of you guys use a plate chiller? I'm diagramming up my stand and a missing piece is a cooling method (aside from immersion coils, which is a fallback plan). Blichmann Therminators look really nice, despite the price, but I've heard issues with cleaning and such on plate chillers in general.
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Jul 18, 2018 19:11
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I have the plate chiller I got when I bought my Brau Supply setup. I'm not sure who makes it but I love it. And really haven't had any issues with cleaning it. As soon as my wort is in the fermentor I flush a bunch of hot water through both input and output until it runs clear. Then I fill it and shake a bit in case some gunk got stuck and flush again. I'll have to play around with Tinkercad then. I have a few things I want to make but they are tiny and don't need anything super fancy.
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Jul 18, 2018 20:33
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robotsinmyhead posted:Any of you guys use a plate chiller? I'm diagramming up my stand and a missing piece is a cooling method (aside from immersion coils, which is a fallback plan). Blichmann Therminators look really nice, despite the price, but I've heard issues with cleaning and such on plate chillers in general. I have one that's been sitting around for over three years. The standard shirron one. I also tried a counterflow chiller then ended up sticking with an immersion chiller. How do you handle hops in the brew kettle? Loose pellet or leaf hops will clog it very quickly. If you bag them you are fine with a quick whirlpool. Cleaning is easy if you buy a garden hose fitting for it and blast hot water through it I'm both directions. The plate chiller chills things just fine, but I like how the beer turns out better with loose hops and a whirlpool.
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Jul 19, 2018 00:11
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[="Der Penguingott" post="486249875"] How do you handle hops in the brew kettle? [/quote] Der Penguingott posted:I have one that's been sitting around for over three years. The standard shirron one. I also tried a counterflow chiller then ended up sticking with an immersion chiller. We use two of these (15g batches) and they work great. I haven’t noticed any difference in flavor from loose in the kettle. https://www.amazon.com/Spider-Micro...op+spider&psc=1
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Jul 19, 2018 00:31
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Good call. I'm def a whirlpool convert, so pumping loose hops into my wort isn't a good idea.
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Jul 19, 2018 01:56
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Having used pretty much every chiller, short of a counterflow peltier system, I’ve come to appreciate and rely on a counterflow chiller. I dislike the amount of poo poo that gets caught in plate chillers (even with whirlpool and edge-pinned drain tubes), and heat exchangers are really only good once you’re at commercial and have a dedicated HLT to keep full. I like that I can get wort to 65 reliably, and I consistently can get a good clean/sanitized unit at the end of the day without worrying there might be something still stuck in the chiller that could impact flavor. Just my personal preference though.
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Jul 19, 2018 06:14
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Open to input on a kettle for my mashtun. There are a lot of options from cheap to holy-poo poo, but I'm leaning towards and inexpensive Concord 15 Gallon + their False Bottom, but willing to spend the money on an SS or something similar. Must have a tri-ply bottom, false bottom, and bottom ball valve.
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Jul 19, 2018 12:14
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There is something to be said about the simplicity of immersion chillers. You barely have to clean it, never have to worry about what's inside it. I'm in the planning stages of replacing all my gear and spending a bajillion $$ on brewery of my dreams and I'll probably still stick with the old immersion chiller.
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Jul 19, 2018 15:02
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If I were buying a new chiller, I'd by looking at the Jaded immersion ones. A lot less cleaning and pretty fast claimed chill times. The Brulosophy guy rants about his a lot.
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Jul 19, 2018 15:19
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robotsinmyhead posted:Open to input on a kettle for my mashtun. There are a lot of options from cheap to holy-poo poo, but I'm leaning towards and inexpensive Concord 15 Gallon + their False Bottom, but willing to spend the money on an SS or something similar. I have this one, and it was the best value I could find about a year ago. http://www.brewinternational.com/15-gallon-mash-tun-with-ss-false-bottom-and-weldless-ss-ball-valve-thermometer/
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Jul 19, 2018 15:31
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It's easy enough to switch, but I'm not using 2 piece valves anywhere. Those shits get gross pretty fast.
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Jul 19, 2018 15:33
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I just did some digging on plate chillers and I'm back on the fence with one of those Jaded Hydras. Also, I think I already kinda settled on buying some Spike kettles for the Mashtun and possibly the BK. The quality is nice and some of the features they have appear to be worth the money. Having the false bottom built to fit THAT kettle is a big plus too, and I get get sick street cred for having branded kettles, right?
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Jul 19, 2018 16:17
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Spike is the way I'm going as well.
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Jul 19, 2018 16:30
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robotsinmyhead posted:I just did some digging on plate chillers and I'm back on the fence with one of those Jaded Hydras. I have one spike kettle (15g) and two Concord (15 and 20). Spike is a really nice product, but Concord is basically the same thing. Spike uses Concord kettles for their blanks and welds the fittings on. Spike does not actually "make" any of their products. Same deal with the conical, it's from Toledo spinning. Until the current version of spike kettles, jaybird (NorCal brewing) fabricated all their false bottoms. The current version's false bottom sits very low with minimal deadspace. If you recirculate while direct firing it you don't have a lot of margin for error with a stuck mash before you get scorching. It's fine for herms coil or whatever. You can buy the tri-ply Concord with the jaybird false bottom (2nd gen spike kettle fits it) and save a lot of cash of you don't need the welded fittings or the spike logo. If I were to buy anything from Spike now I would get the triclover setup but it's a gratuitous waste of money for homebrew hot side equipment.
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Jul 19, 2018 23:08
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That sounds like a good compromise. Would you mind grabbing me a link?
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Jul 19, 2018 23:58
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robotsinmyhead posted:That sounds like a good compromise. Would you mind grabbing me a link? https://www.norcalbrewingsolutions.com/store/Conversion_Kettle_Spike_Brewing_v2.0_15_Gallon.html It sits high enough to put the fittings under it.
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Jul 20, 2018 03:33
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Glottis posted:Sounds like you just need a bigger pot. Sparging shouldn't increase your volumes -- if you do no sparge, increase the mash volume to compensate for the lack of sparge liquid. I brew 5 gallon batches and use a 15 gallon pot and kettle. I usually end the boil with about 7 gallons, put about 6 in the fermenter, and keg 5. (Here in the euroland you can normally pull up to 3.6kW out of pretty much any old wall socket so the various electric all-in-systems are pretty popular)
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Jul 23, 2018 17:36
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Cross contamination is starting to bite me in the butt and it's time for a few new fermenters. Brewed up my friend's first beer, a Cream Ale with vanilla and it has a slight but definite lacto twinge to it. It's not unpleasant, but it doesn't fit the style well and 'Sour Cream Ale' is evocative in the wrong way. His second beer went into bottles on Saturday. No cross contamination and I got to try out some continued experiments with my carb cap and ended up force carbing 1 Mr. Beer bottle. It came out fantastic - quintessential Amber Ale. I will likely send it to comps. Being able to try a finished beer ON bottling day is pretty awesome.
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Jul 23, 2018 19:29
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cyberbug posted:I'm using an all-in-one electric kettle so I can't simply buy a bigger pot. In this situation I pretty much have to take the hit in final volume in the fermenter or spend the effort of sparging. I mean, you don't have to "sparge" per se, you could just add more water to bring the volume up. Your efficiency takes a hit but it just depends how much you care about the extra ingredient cost.
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Jul 23, 2018 20:26
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