Old Rambler 22/04

[Seveneer]

Try doughing in then leaving the mash to stabilise for half an hour before recirculating. After following Steve's advice, of course

/Phil.

[Vossy1]

Try doughing in then leaving the mash to stabilise for half an hour before recirculating

Hi Phil, I already do this following your excellent advice as to how you use your system.

Are you still using your 22mm copper manifold

[Seveneer]

Hi Vossy,

yes I am still using the 22mm manifold but I'm going to change the design to allow a better flow.

/Phil.

[Gurgeh]

G, If that's not a wind up, it's so simply ingenius and cheap it's ridiculous

That's what I do. I'm only doing 5Kg at a time, but can see that it would work for your heavy mashes!

Just make sure you have a system in place in case a marble cracks in the heat or under the weight. Very unlikely, but...

[UserDeleted]

John at the H&G suggested a hop back type arrangement, pumping the gravity fed reserve as opposed to the mash direct.

Underbacks (Or a grant, but we ain't American ) are quite common in many commercial breweries. Large mash tuns do not drain from a single point, and the underback gives a common vessel for all these points to run into. From there the wort is pumped back to the tun for recirculation / or to the boiler. In the commercial world heat loss isn't a massive problem due to the thermal mass of the mash tun / underback arrangement. I suspect it could be in the HB environment, however draining into a large saucepan (pressure cooker sized) fitted with a tap attached to your pump should be OK amd you can always fit a small heater to the underback.

Level control could be the problem but this could be controlled with a couple of float switches and latching relays to turn the pump on and off. Some sort of backflow preventer would need to be fitted between the pump and the underback.

[Andy]

I use an underback so that I can pump wort into the boiler without having to pump directly from the mash. Works well but I control it all manually - let the underback fill up, turn pump on until underback empty, turn pump off, let underback fill up again etc etc. If you were using an underback in HERMS/RIMS then as UserDeleted mentions you'd need some kind of wort level switch to turn the pump off if/when the underback is empty. Heat losses would initially be high but with good insulation then it might be viable.

[Vossy1]

Hi Andy & UD.

I run off using gravity into a runnings vessel underneath my mash tun (it is not pumped directly from the mash)

I collect my runnings usually down to 1010 in the RV then top it up to boil volume from the hlt. I then empty my HLT of any spare sparge water and then pump the RV's contents into the HLT/copper for boiling.

My RV has a single element to keep the runnings warm during sparging, my HLT/copper has 2 elements for the boil.

There has to be a more efficient way of creating a larger surface area false bottom than the ones commonly available.

I've seen some perforated ss tube on e-bay that looks quite interesting, though it'll be a bugger to work with

[SteveD]

Vossy, do you have an aversion to copper manifolds? They work fine, and won't collapse under the weight of the grain. There seems to be a lot of effort going into solving the false bottom design problem, but the simple use of a manifold is being ingnored.

[Andy]

Hi Andy & UD.

I run off using gravity into a runnings vessel underneath my mash tun (it is not pumped directly from the mash)

I collect my runnings usually down to 1010 in the RV then top it up to boil volume from the hlt. I then empty my HLT of any spare sparge water and then pump the RV's contents into the HLT/copper for boiling.

Yes, we understand that - we're coming from the angle of using the underback as a "buffer" between your mash and the pump whilst *recirculating*.

[Vossy1]

No aversion SD, this is the manifold the FB replaced. It stuck also leading to a ruined batch and that was enough for me. I also had the same manifold with twice as many slots, too many slots, and the tube distorted when trying to undo to clean.

Andy, I misread the post as you can see from my reply. I see the point in the underback buffer but it's just a bit too much faffing about for me.

DaaB, yes I was trying to reduce the vacuum effect by taking the runnings from a larger surface area.

[Vossy1]

Back to topic

10 days in the primary for this my strongest ale to date.
Tested the gravity 5 days ago at 1016, target was 1014.
Put it back in the fermenting cupboard and tested today at 1011.

It's very malty, the bitterness of the hops is coming through nicely, though not the aroma, and Good god its strongly alcoholic
7.7% abv

My question is..if the fg is below that targeted, apart from being slightly more alcoholic is this usual (definately no sign of any infection, the bacteria are bladdered )?

Regards the manifold problems I've been having, John at athe Hop and grape is going to get hold of some coarsely crushed Marris for me to try.

It's got 56 - 58 % husk/coarse grind versus the 46% stuff I was using.

[Vossy1]

Racked to corny with IG yesterday and I'm beginning to wish I hadn't.

There's no way this ale can be drunk at any more then a pint a night, maybe 2 or 3 but maybe I should have bottled it

It's like old tom

Don't get me wrong, it's very tasty but I think the taps on the old vossy kegerator will lock up before a corny gets finished

[Vossy1]

You could always use this as an excuse to buy yourself a counter pressure filler of the Bilcherman beer gun

Hmmmm, now there's an idea....DaaB you're a bad man

[subsub]

It's like old tom

mmmm luverly

[Chiltern Brewer]

Racked to corny with IG yesterday and I'm beginning to wish I hadn't.

There's no way this ale can be drunk at any more then a pint a night, maybe 2 or 3 but maybe I should have bottled it

It's like old tom

Don't get me wrong, it's very tasty but I think the taps on the old vossy kegerator will lock up before a corny gets finished

Looking over your recipe is sounds more like Traquair House Ale to me (RA Alamanac - Pale 98.1%, Black 1.9%, EKG 35 units, 1070, 7.2%), yum yum! They sell it in 330ml bottles - which is how I got my supply, not all drunk by me I hassen to add! Having brought a case of HA and Jacobite (48 bottles), they happily gave me a few bags full of empties too! Strangely, I have a feeling that Robinsons actually had (if not still have) the bottling contract.

I'd mature it in your keg for as long as you can then bottle it.