The MaltMother™

[orlando]

looks a smart setup, how did that filter cope with all them hops?

Terribly! I mean, I did throw 250g of pellet hops at it, and most filters would struggle with that. I tried to give it a scrape and that helped a tad. I think it might be time to switch to leaf hops...

Did you whirlpool? It dumps the hops in the centre. Unfortunately it does so by attracting hops and trub to the filter before returning to the centre so the filter does need to cope with that, but if it does you will be filtering clear wort at the end.

[cerbera84]

looks a smart setup, how did that filter cope with all them hops?

Terribly! I mean, I did throw 250g of pellet hops at it, and most filters would struggle with that. I tried to give it a scrape and that helped a tad. I think it might be time to switch to leaf hops...

Did you whirlpool?

No I didn’t - when I built the system I included a whirlpool port but, as you say, the pump pulls the hops to the filter and clogs. Might have to look at adding a hop filter or use the Grainfather whirlpool paddle.

[cerbera84]

the latest brew has dropped to 1.006 territory, i’ve had a cheeky taste and it’s on track to be a cracker. i’m planning to bottle all 27 litres of this, as I’ve found I prefer the taste of bottle conditioning to force carbing most of the time. Just got to clean all those bottles now...!

[cerbera84]

Evening guys,

I've lost count of how many brews I've made using my setup, but recently I made a couple of changes to the MaltMother, so its time for a thread update.

IMG_20180921_090456 by Ben, on Flickr

I've replaced the stainless false bottom in the malt pipe for a BIAB fabric bag. Seems to increase flow by quite a margin - was running the recirc pump full blast and was nowhere near to overflowing, despite having 7kg of malt in there. I rebrewed my coffee oatmeal stout, which turned out to be a lovely drop last time.

IMG_20180921_093238 by Ben, on Flickr

IMG_20180921_095723 by Ben, on Flickr

IMG_20180921_105822 by Ben, on Flickr

IMG_20180921_113220 by Ben, on Flickr

IMG_20180921_125013 by Ben, on Flickr

IMG_20180922_130522 by Ben, on Flickr

Bang on 1.055 OG, with 65% efficiency. Fitted a modified grainfather filter in the setup, which coped well this time round (much fewer hops). I am planning to place another temperature probe at the top of the system to capture the recirc temp just before it goes onto the top of the mash, to try and get a more accurate temperature reading. I've got 25 litres of this down to 1.015 so far, need to add 50g or so of cold steeped coffee this week.

I'm planning to brew dark beers over winter - I'm starting to tackle the water treatment reading and my initial research indicates my water is very hard. I'm still getting my head around it all but might toy with adding sulphates (using gypsum??) to bring out hop character in my spring / summer pale beers in 2019!

Cheers!