Brewday 13/05/07 - First attempt at AG

[Ianb]

Phil, I like your style!!!!!

I'm quite intrigued as to how things are going to perform. I've got a few old building services computers that I've repaired and one is set up with a few sensors so I can graph temperatures, just out of interest. The sensors are on the HLT, in the grain bed of the mash tun, in the chillers water bath and I'm going to sanitise one and throw it in the wort when i start cooling.

The HLT is controled by the BMS as well. It's only hysterisis control on a contactor, but I hope it will be within a degree or so.

Can you tell I used to make a living as a controls engineer!?!?! The brewery is a nice little project to keep my hand in, with the end result of lots of lovely beer!!!!

.....i'd hoped to thyristor control the boiler to get the rolling boil just right but the thyristor ended up in scotland and it hasn't made it back yet!!!

Ian

[BarryNL]

Yes, I'm not saying you absolutely need one for your first all grain adventure

Batch sparging seems to be the way to avoid worrying about it

[Ianb]

Well, things haven't gone according to plan, but do they ever. Finally doughed in about half an hour ago. Temp seemed a little low, so I added some hot water and greatly overshot. Temperature currently sitting at 68 degrees or thereabouts.

I wish I'd left alone now as it was at 64-5, but never mind.

Really pleased with the HLT which worked perfectly.

Mashed 5kg of Optic malt, with about 15L of water.

HLT now up to sparging temp (currently sitting at 80.13 degrees, warm enough? might up it to 82)

Right going to get the camera in the mashing lull period!!!

[prolix]

any more news Ian?

[Ianb]

Well, I've just sat down to type up my latest report....

... and the in laws have turned up to take us to the pub

Quick summary.

Everything works. 5.5 gallons are in the fermenter. And there were only a couple of problems!!


More when I return, suitably refreshed!!!!

[Ianb]

It is handy having a mother in law who doesn't drink......sometimes

Unfortunately Mrs B had lent the camera out, so the only piccies I took were on my phone, and I can't get bluetooth working to get them off tonight.(too many Halifax Steam products sampled?!?!)

So, I actually got the "brewery" into a state of readiness just after lunch.

As soon as I'd got the plumbing and wiring finished for the HLT I turned it on. I'm fairly happy with the temp control (graphs to post tomorrow) considering it is just hysterisis control on a contactor.

Pre heated the mash tun with a couple of kettles of boiling water, waited for ten then emptied and refilled with water at 70 from the HLT.

Doughed in (jeez, I never realised 5kg of grain was so much!!!) and stuck in the temperature sensor. peaked at 64 degC. Added boiling water from kettle. Overshot to 69. bugger. Lesson learnt. HLT temp needs to be about 72 degC.

Piled blankets etc on cool box mash tun. Realised I dont need them. Lost about 2 degrees in the hour and a half once I'd removed them again.

After 90 mins ran about 6 pints off from the tun before it ran clear. Fly sparging worked like a dream. I ended up getting just over 6 gallons by the time the SG dropped to 1010, and I called it a day.

I insulated the boiler last week, thinking it would be a good idea. It is a Swan six gallon "burco" type fitted with a stainless hop filter.

Insulating caused big problems. All of a sudden, the energy input required for a sedentary rolling boil was less that the 2.4kW element. I just caught the boil over and spent the next hour and a half turning the switch on the socket on and off at fifteen second intervals!!!

I've probably over hopped, but it's all a learning curve....as long as it doesn't strip the enamel off my teeth

The hop filters worked superbly (they are the stainless mesh from the outside of two flexible tap connectors, joined on a piece of 15mm copper in the middle, and jointed to a double manifold outlet). I ended up returning 6 pints before it was running crystal clear.

At this point I filled a sterilised grolsh bottle with about a pint to cool as a starter. I then plunged it straight into the chiller at 1 degC. DOH!!!

So I've now got one less Grolsh bottle, and I've lost a pint of wort

Poured another pint into a pyrex jug and cooled it, pitching a packet of Safale 04.

The drawn off wort, all 5.5 gallons of it, was the but in the water bath cooler. It took about an hour to cool, but there was no circulation pump in the water bath, so DaaB, you are correct, the Cornelius 1000 water bath won't chill 5 gallon quickly. I'm working on a solution involving a plate exchanger.

The starter went crazy, as expected, and two hours after pitching there was a good covering of bubbles on the wort. The room temp is set at 20degC at the moment.

Best of all, I've really enjoyed myself!!!

Can't wait for the next one. I've got lots of grain left!!!

Realistically, it took about 6 hours from doughing in to finishing cleaning up, which ain't bad at all. I'm dead chuffed!!!

So now then, is there any use for the spent graings? It seems such a waste throwing them in the bin.

Recipe brewed :-

5kG Optic malt, mashed at 69 degC (ooops, aiming for 66) for 90 mins.
50g challenger, (5.6 AA) once boil achieved
25g Cascade, (AA unknown) 15mins from end
20g Cascade + 1tsp irish moss 5 mins from end.
Total boil duration 95 minutes.
Safale 04
O.G. 1053


3 hours after pitching the yeast starter, amd there is a healthy looking coating of bubbles on the surface, but it isn't going ballistic....yet!!

Piccies and temperature graphs tomorrow, I promise.

Ian

[Ianb]

Right then, it's time for some piccies



HLT. Sight glass is a piece of catering grade plastic with a couple of floating black beads to make the level easier to see. The big grey box is the end of a thermistor temperature sensor, the black lead is the mash tun temp sensor.



All gravity fed Cool box mash tun feeds into nicely insulated boiler which in turn feeds into FV. outlet pipe gets larger so I can fit a watering can rose so the wort gets nicely aerated (or that's my theory). Think I'll need to get cooling in the boiler sorted before it will work properly. Note the hugh pile of old blankets I was planning on using for extra mash tun insulation - not required!!!



Just shows how the HLT connects to the spargy spray shower in the cool box lid.



This is the graph of the HLT temperature. The actual temperature regulation is about +/- 0.75 deg C. It was stood a while before I doughed in. Big drop in temp is when I refill and then switch to "sparge" mode. About 16:30 you can see where I raised the setpoint to 82 degC from 80.



Once I'd mixed everything up, I threw the sensor in the mash tun. The temperature settled out at about 64 so I added some more boiling water and overshot. Next to no loss (less than 1 deg C over the mash period.) You can then see the temp rise while sparging, and the gradual loss once the sweet wort had been run off the grains. Looks like I started cleaning down about 19:30 !!!! (I had planned to do this during the boil, but I spent all my time turning the boiler on and off! )



There are two sensors on the wort cooler. One is in the water bath of the chiller. The other was sterilised and thrown in the wort. The jagged peaks are each time I stirred. Thermal transfer wasn't that efficient as there was no stirring action in the water bath. I want to persevere with this chiller as I don't like wasting water through a conventional cooler. I'm considering a plate exchanger with the wort pumped through and back into the boiler and the python pump doing the primaries.

Comments welcome, as always.

Ian

[BarrowBoy]

So now then, is there any use for the spent graings? It seems such a waste throwing them in the bin.

Ian

Mine go straight to the compost heap. Micro breweries often give their's to local farmers as cattle feed.

Sounds like a good brew day though - it wouldn't be right to have gone too smoothly.

[Ianb]

Hmmm. Any ideas why only the first piccy comes out, and it is distorted?

I've checked the links and they're all ok.

[PieOPah]

So now then, is there any use for the spent graings? It seems such a waste throwing them in the bin.

Ian

I have heard that some people have dried them out and then added them to homemade bread. Not something I Have tried, but I imagine that it could make for a nice interesting bread.

[delboy]

You could compost them and use them in the garden. I guess you'd need them a proper compost bin to keep mice/rats from being attracted to them.

[Ianb]

Ah yes, see what you mean about the image sizes, Daab. All resized now and it looks a bit better!

I'm not sure about the bread idea, although composting is a good idea - we've got a composter at the bottom of the garden, so I'll try that I think.

I checked this morning and there was a good half inch foamy head, so things seem ok.

It's occured to me that I didn't make any "samplers", so I'll have to just barrel it once fermented and then wait a few weeks before trying.

[Wez]

Could you use the grains in bird feeders once they are dried out? Or is it pointless as we've taken the goodness out of them?

[Exextractor]

Nice photos Ian - impressive exercise in process engineering!

I'd love to be able to acquire temperature data onto a pc. What kind of software/hardware do you need?

Re: spent grain, last time I had to throw some of the grains to the chickens to keep them out of the 'brewery' (a.k.a. garden shed). They loved them but 5kg wouldn't do them much good so the rest went on the compost heap.

Exe

[Ianb]

Exe
To be totally honest, the control system I've used is a total overkill for the job in hand. The controller is a Trend IQ241 expandable controller. It currently has 14 thermistor temperature inputs, eight digital inputs and 12 0-10v outputs.
The software is Trend proprietary building management software, 963. This just reads the controller, the controller is a stand alone unit.
Retail there's about three grand in the controller and software, needless to say, the controller was one I repaired after it had been replaced and the copy of 963 was acquired from one of my clients at work.
There are freeware programs that read temperature sensors direct into a p.c. I'll pm you if I can find the link.

Ian