First brew day on my single tier keggle, direct fire MT setup... questions

Hit 72% efficiency dead-on... but not without some hiccups.

I quickly found that my chugger pump is a pain in the butt to prime, and I lost a good deal of sparge water and wort due to that.

the other slightly annoying thing is I couldn't get the mash to stabilize at a good temp. Fired, it wouldn't hold, just climb. Unfired and recirculating, and I'd lose about 2 degrees every 10 minutes. It became one of those deals where I had to babysit it throughout the mash. I'm going to insulate the mash tun this week to see how that helps as well.

It was also my first go around with my counterflow chiller. Holy awesome. Single pass to 68 and into the carboy. Can't hate that.

So, with that said, here are some questions I have though about what you guys do-

- How do you recover the wort in all of the hose/tubing once the chugger sucks dry? Mine won't push the lines clean. I used compressed air, which worked well, but I'm sure that isn't the most sanitary method out there. I can't bear to waste or spill it everywhere.

- What is everyone using for mash tun insulation?

- Is the 1.25-1.5:1 water to grist ratio still in play with false bottoms. It seems like I should go higher, considering there is probably 4+quarts of liquid under the FB and not really doing anything there.

- Do you recirculate the mash constantly, or just when you are heating?

Thanks a lot for any help you can provide.

1) I just figure out how much I'm going to loose in my tubing/chiller/pumps and accept that as "dead loss". Then figure that into how much total water I need to get to my desired volumes.

2) I tried using the reflectex stuff from Lowes/HD. Worked ok until i fired the MLT, forgetting about the insulation. Melted the lower portion of it. Now, i just keep an eye on it, and fire as needed.

3) I go with the 1.25, but I'm not loosing 4 qts under my FB either.

4) I normally recirc constantly. However, I've noticed that it seems to hold temp better if i only recirc the last 10-15 min. That said, I've only really started playing with that since the spring, when it was already warmer out. Trying to brew during the winter, in the driveway, robs alot of heat quickly.

dfess1 said:

2) I tried using the reflectex stuff from Lowes/HD. Worked ok until i fired the MLT, forgetting about the insulation. Melted the lower portion of it. Now, i just keep an eye on it, and fire as needed.

...

4) I normally recirc constantly. However, I've noticed that it seems to hold temp better if i only recirc the last 10-15 min. That said, I've only really started playing with that since the spring, when it was already warmer out. Trying to brew during the winter, in the driveway, robs alot of heat quickly.

Click to expand...

This. Babysitting a direct fire, uninsulated mash tun is a necessary evil to maintain temps. If you don't want to babysit, use a cooler, or automate your system. I like it manual. Makes me feel like I'm in control. Automation is a fun project and a wonderful accomplishment, but my thought is: If you're goal is to just press a button and walk away to make beer, what's the point? Going to a store a buying it is much cheaper.

Second point (or Point 4, however you like it) is that recirculating for the entire mash ensures an even mash temp. If you just leave it for 40 minutes and only recirculate the last 15-20, you're going to get stratification, and different portions of your mash will be at different temperatures.

The beer is your baby. If you don't keep an eye on it, keep it comfortable, and keep it happy, then I'm calling Beer Protection Services.

[edit] To OP: Big fan of your US-05 experiments. Well done.

I use a Blichmann15 gal pot for my MLT. I found the thermo to be good to read strike water temp, and after that, I found it pretty useless (once doughed in). I made another thermo out of some stainless T's and camlock fittings (along with the thermo) that reads the temp of the wort coming out from under the FB and being deposited back on top of the mash. After 10 min of recirculating, this and the thermo on the MLT normalize (as you pull the water through the grain bed). Makes me feel a bit better about the mash temp anyway.

I use a Blichmann 10ga boilermaker myself (because I'm stooopid and ignored everyone's....literally everyone's advice to get 15s), and I did the same thing. I use the in-kettle thermometer to measure mash temp, and have another one (Lonnie Mac's "temperature T") at the mash return coming off my pump to measure the temp of the wort coming off the burner.

The in-kettle thermometer is much slower to rise when the burner is on. This is logical, because it's a much denser and more thermally stable mass than what's being pumped through my hoses (and which is coming right off the burner). On my system, I usually activate my burner until my hose-thermometer is about 2-3 degrees above what I want the mash temp to be, and then shut off the burner. The mash temp (i.e., in-kettle thermometer) will then slowly rise and usually stabilize (takes less than a minute) to where I want it. I do have to fire the burner about every 7 minutes, but as I said above, I'm ok with that.

OK, thanks for all of the info. General concensus is to continuously recirc and just fire as needed... got it! I have a thermometer and tee setup on the outlet of my chugger already, so the dual thermo setup has already been done.

I also found a solution to my priming issues, and it involves a ballvalve and camlocks to essentially gravity feed and lock the liquid down without losing any volume.

Keep 'em coming.

Anyone using a triple keggle mash profile setup on beersmith want to share their values to compare?