Ragtop232
Well-Known Member
Well, the first actual brewday was a success. However, I was not able to save any photo's from this brew session. I had taken photo's of every step and then pulled the SDHC out of my camera. During the cleanup phase, my card containing all the photos was dropped in the container with StarSan. No way to recover, so I'll have to document again on the next brew.
I can report the Convoluted CFC worked much better than expected. I was able to cool from boiling to 68 degrees in 12 minutes with tap water temp @49 degrees. I hardly had enough time to get everything situated until I had to cut the pump.
Going into the brew day, I calculated everything at 70% efficiency not having any track record with this setup. I crushed the grain pretty fine with the default setting of my Rebel Grain Mill. The inner Bayou Classic grain kettle/welded Blichmann false bottom worked fantastically. I was able to recirculate about .75 gal per minute through the grain bed. I was initially concerned about the recirculation rate and not allowing the inner kettle to overflow. This wasn't an issue I'm happy to say and even with the fine crush, a good recirculation rate was achieved without the inner grain kettle getting any fuller indicating a good drain rate and recirculation rate. Also, the mash was a fairly thick consistency. I would say probably about 1.33 qt/lb and the 4 gal reservoir under the grain kettle made this work great.
First, before the grain bill and times, etc. I'll tell you what iBrewMaster and BeerAlchemy calculated as my actual efficiency: ~85%
Here is the grain bill and mashing schedule:
10 lbs 2 row pale ale malt
1 lb 20L Crystal
1 lb Vienne 20L
Mash for 60 minutes at 153 degrees and then ramp to 168 degrees and hold for 10 minute mashout.
Initial water was about @49 degrees, placed 8.25 gal into kettle. Next turned on 4500 watt element @100%. Took 35 minutes to reach 156 degrees, no recirculation at this point, just trying to get water to strike temp. I then shut the element off, placed the grain kettle with welded false bottom in the main boil kettle and starting the dough-in process. After this was completed the temp was about 151 degrees. I then started the recirculation to allow the grain bed to settle and get the recirculation flow set. I was really surprised at how much flow I could run and not have any backup in the grain kettle. I'm guessing about .75 gal/min. Once this was stabilized, I set my mash temp to 153 and it took about 7 minutes to reach 153 and the element then shut off. On my setup, I found the element would stay on about 4 minutes and off about 5 to maintain my mash temp. Never varied more than 2 degrees either way and if it varied the 2 degrees, it would not stay there more than a few seconds. I'm very happy with the EBC SV. Mashed for 60 minutes and then set the EBC SV to 168. Took about 13 minutes to reach 168 and I recirculated for 10 minutes. I am going to have to construct an overhead pulley system to handle the grain kettle. We pulled the grain kettle and allowed to drain for about 4 minutes. We then had a contained we set the grain kettle in to allow to finish draining while I brought the wort to a boil. After a rolling boil,which took about 18 minutes, I was able to turn the EBC SV down to about 60% to keep a just right boil.. I do a 90 boil and allowed to boil the first 30 minutes before adding hops on this recipe. I never had to touch the potentiometer on the EBC SV again during the boil.
After the boil finished, I started the cooling process. WOW, I'm impressed with the SS Convoluted CFC. 49 degree tap water brought boiling wort down to 68 degrees in 12 minutes.
So, I'm very happy with my setup so far. Not to many bugs in the system. Just need to brew on it a few more times to really hone in the process. I'm very glad I went this direction with my brewery.
Screenshot from my iPad and iBrewMaster:
I can report the Convoluted CFC worked much better than expected. I was able to cool from boiling to 68 degrees in 12 minutes with tap water temp @49 degrees. I hardly had enough time to get everything situated until I had to cut the pump.
Going into the brew day, I calculated everything at 70% efficiency not having any track record with this setup. I crushed the grain pretty fine with the default setting of my Rebel Grain Mill. The inner Bayou Classic grain kettle/welded Blichmann false bottom worked fantastically. I was able to recirculate about .75 gal per minute through the grain bed. I was initially concerned about the recirculation rate and not allowing the inner kettle to overflow. This wasn't an issue I'm happy to say and even with the fine crush, a good recirculation rate was achieved without the inner grain kettle getting any fuller indicating a good drain rate and recirculation rate. Also, the mash was a fairly thick consistency. I would say probably about 1.33 qt/lb and the 4 gal reservoir under the grain kettle made this work great.
First, before the grain bill and times, etc. I'll tell you what iBrewMaster and BeerAlchemy calculated as my actual efficiency: ~85%
Here is the grain bill and mashing schedule:
10 lbs 2 row pale ale malt
1 lb 20L Crystal
1 lb Vienne 20L
Mash for 60 minutes at 153 degrees and then ramp to 168 degrees and hold for 10 minute mashout.
Initial water was about @49 degrees, placed 8.25 gal into kettle. Next turned on 4500 watt element @100%. Took 35 minutes to reach 156 degrees, no recirculation at this point, just trying to get water to strike temp. I then shut the element off, placed the grain kettle with welded false bottom in the main boil kettle and starting the dough-in process. After this was completed the temp was about 151 degrees. I then started the recirculation to allow the grain bed to settle and get the recirculation flow set. I was really surprised at how much flow I could run and not have any backup in the grain kettle. I'm guessing about .75 gal/min. Once this was stabilized, I set my mash temp to 153 and it took about 7 minutes to reach 153 and the element then shut off. On my setup, I found the element would stay on about 4 minutes and off about 5 to maintain my mash temp. Never varied more than 2 degrees either way and if it varied the 2 degrees, it would not stay there more than a few seconds. I'm very happy with the EBC SV. Mashed for 60 minutes and then set the EBC SV to 168. Took about 13 minutes to reach 168 and I recirculated for 10 minutes. I am going to have to construct an overhead pulley system to handle the grain kettle. We pulled the grain kettle and allowed to drain for about 4 minutes. We then had a contained we set the grain kettle in to allow to finish draining while I brought the wort to a boil. After a rolling boil,which took about 18 minutes, I was able to turn the EBC SV down to about 60% to keep a just right boil.. I do a 90 boil and allowed to boil the first 30 minutes before adding hops on this recipe. I never had to touch the potentiometer on the EBC SV again during the boil.
After the boil finished, I started the cooling process. WOW, I'm impressed with the SS Convoluted CFC. 49 degree tap water brought boiling wort down to 68 degrees in 12 minutes.
So, I'm very happy with my setup so far. Not to many bugs in the system. Just need to brew on it a few more times to really hone in the process. I'm very glad I went this direction with my brewery.
Screenshot from my iPad and iBrewMaster: