Brewday - 6/10/07

[Vossy1]

Great pics Steve

Loving the new pump...looks familiar
They really are very quiet aren't they
I know what you mean about the reduced flow rate against resistance.
I too have been forced to cool straight to fv...I didn't fancy the wait

Steve, do you think you could get away with a 10 gallon high OG beer...say 1100 in the 70 ltr fermentor?

It would be far easier for me to buy the same one as you and not have to drill a tap hole than get the 80 ltr jobby...seeming as CD aren't answering my e-mails even though there written in German

[steve_flack]

I may have to knock up (or buy) a hopback as my old method of adding a ton of hops for aroma then crash cooling the whole wort isn't now viable with this pump. That's a shame but I do feel better using a pump that's actually rated for the temps I'm using it at!

CD are crap at emails - I asked about buying some of those bits that go between the two skins to attach the tap....they sent me a refund claim form.

Given that you HERMS/RIMS like me I doubt you'll get that strong a beer in the fermenter. I find I need about 3.5L/kg of water to actually get the thing to recirculate. 10Gallons of 1.100 is about 20kg of malt so you're looking at 70L of water. If you don't recirculate and use 2.5L/kg then you might JUST squeeze that much in. Given there's so much grain, once you hit your mash temp it should stay pretty much there anyway.

Personally, on huge ass beers I would either add some LME to boost the gravity or (if the purity police weren't watching) a couple of bags of sugar.

[steve_flack]

It's on all the time. As it happens once it got to temp (I was a couple of degrees low on mash in) the heater wasn't on much. I got a very clear wort out of it.

[Seveneer]

Given that you HERMS/RIMS like me I doubt you'll get that strong a beer in the fermenter. I find I need about 3.5L/kg of water to actually get the thing to recirculate. 10Gallons of 1.100 is about 20kg of malt so you're looking at 70L of water. If you don't recirculate and use 2.5L/kg then you might JUST squeeze that much in. Given there's so much grain, once you hit your mash temp it should stay pretty much there anyway.

I've been using a ratio of 2.3 l/kg recently and have had no problems recirculating. What kind of problems do you see when you reduce the ratio Steve? Are we talking set mash?

I use a 100l mash tun and have plenty of space left when mashing 20kg of malt . I should think that it would be tight with a 75l one though.

/Phil.

[steve_flack]

I tried at 2.5L and basically the pump set the mash. I had to add another load of water to get there to be enough water in the grain for it not to set.

[Seveneer]

That's interesting Steve. I used to go with a wet mash for the same reason but a few brews ago I realised I had an airlock in the system that was causing the pump to draw the mash into the manifold.

Now I pass hot water through the heat exchanger at full bore to make sure it's clear of air before I start recirculating the wort. The result is that the wort is recirculated smoothly so the mash doesn't set. I can go down to a really stiff mash and still recirculate.

I know you have a RIMS so it would seem less probable that you have an air lock but it might be worth thinking about.

Also, I let the mash sit for at least 15 minutes before recirculating. This seems to help too.

/Phil.

[steve_flack]

Also, I let the mash sit for at least 15 minutes before recirculating. This seems to help too.

That would definitely thin it out as the majority of the starches would be converted by then.

[Aleman]

That is one of the reasons I went with an underback, After pulling the mash bed solid, with a directly connected pump, I decided to use the underback. Haven't had a problem with stuck mashes since, and I can use (as I discovered this time) a much thicker mash that I have been using (2.5L/Kg instead of 3.3-3.5L/Kg)

This time I let my mash convert for 60 Minutes before recirculating for the last 30 minutes as I know my MT doesn't loose too much heat, but the RIMS appears to have a problem, This way I got a clear wort, but much more foam at the initial boil, and a dirtier yeast head. So I'm guessing that a significant amount of protein degradation take place during the RIMS phase, that with a short one doesn't happen.

Of course I'm using a Stuart Turner cellar pump (NOT the RG550 an older model), that can really shift liquid

[steve_flack]

Is an underback another vessel you run the mash tun into and then pump the liquid only from there? Also does anyone know what a 'valentine arm' is? I've seen them mentioned but I can't find out what one is...and no it's not what a single bloke has on the 14th February!

[Aleman]

Yes Underback takes the run off from the mash and you then pump it from there. Its what our colonial cousins ( ) would call a grant. It really comes into its own with the large commercial mash tuns where there are more than one take off from the tun (IIRC the old Plzen mash tun had 20+ take off points running into a copper trough, which them fed the pump and boilers)

Never heard of a valentine arm though

[steve_flack]

I found a reference to a valentine....it's a thing that stops your mashtun running dry.

http://www.craft brewing.org.uk/technical/extdoc/thedraff.pdf

The first bit on the last page

[Andy]

viewtopic.php?p=52165

[Andy]

No need to rub it in

Forum hiccups!