trarmer007
Member
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2021
- Messages
- 13
- Reaction score
- 7
After brewing with propane and 12 gallon cooler for over 2.5 decades, I fired up my new 65L system Friday.
I should have taken the advice to make a first run with a smaller beer. I did 10 gallons of tripel instead with a recipe including 29.5#'s of grain. That recipe was about 95% of max capacity for my cooler/keg/burner set up. The recipe was probably 101% capacity of the 65L.
I read a lot about lost efficiency. I wanted to hit 1.075. I tried to do a "batch sparge" to get better efficiency by pumping out wort into a 4-gallon pot and adding back in 3 gallons of sparge water which I heated up on the propane burner. Despite pulling 3.5+ gallons into the pot, I could only add back in about 1.5 gallons to batch sparge. Re-circ'd that for about 10 minutes, lifted the mash pipe and then "fly sparged" the last 1.5 gallons. I hit 1.070 which was 65% efficiency. So I'm not sure if this batching attempt really helped or not. 1.070 will still get me with style range of a tripel.
The down side to this batch sparge attempt was the 3.5 drawn gallons had a lot of hot break. I added this to the wort to boil without running it through the grain bed. I caught an E3 error about 50 minutes into the boil. I cycled the power and all was well again. I assumed (rightly) that there was scorching going on. I keep boiling without the 1000 watt element on and made it through.
With 5 to go in the boil I turned on the pump to sanitize it - but it was clogged. After flame-out and at about 190 degrees I tried it again and it was unclogged. I feel comfortable that the wort was sanitized sufficiently at pasteur-temp/time. But all that hot break is begging for scorching or pump hole clogging. I could tell there was some scorching because the wort color darkened.
After pitching I cleaned the system. There was scorched material, not much, but some, on the bottom. It came off easily. I could not taste "burnt" in the sampled wort.
On the plus side, the 65L with 250V heats up to mash temps fast. I over shot 122 by using all 3 elements. Shut one down and mashed at 127 for the protein rest. Programmed the next step-mash temps with ease and it hit all step temps quickly. Step mashing in my cooler was laborious to say the least. Recirc'ing and heating was a breeze. Came to boil in 5-7 minutes - barely enough time to sip a beer.
I found myself playing with the heating elements a bit. Using all 3 elements was excessive at mash-in, 2 minutes after each step, and after 10 or so minutes of boil. It is hard to know when and which element is best to turn off or leave on. Hopefully someone with some knowledge on this subject will post this. I will make a log next time.
The brew session went fast. Step mashing was easy. A pump is a huge time and work saver. Having one pot, not a cooler and several pots was easier and less to clean. Coming to a boil was fast. Certainly spent less time by not fly sparging or step mashing with old school methods. I used the SS immersion chiller that came with the unit. I have two small immersion chillers in a 5 gallon cooler which I fill with ice. Chill water first goes from hose, trough immersions in the ice bath, then through the SS immersion chiller. The hot output is cleaning water. Once the wort hits 100, I use a fish pump to recirc the cooler's ice slurry through the immersion chillers. Within 5 hours I had mashed, boiled, chilled, cleaned and called it a day. That's 1/2 the time I used to spend. Holy cow, I am imagining all the beer I am now going to be able to brew on a Friday or Saturday night.
But the sacrifice is efficiency plus the risk of a scorch taste. I've gotten in the 90% range over the years with the cooler/keg set-up. For a smaller beers, no problem - buy $3.50 more grain. But I hate to be wasteful. On my next (smaller beer) I will batch sparge again but return the batch through the grain bed to see if it's worth the effort and clears up all the hot break.
How common is scorching and clogging? Can efficiency be gained doing a batch sparge? If so, is the juice worth the squeeze?
I should have taken the advice to make a first run with a smaller beer. I did 10 gallons of tripel instead with a recipe including 29.5#'s of grain. That recipe was about 95% of max capacity for my cooler/keg/burner set up. The recipe was probably 101% capacity of the 65L.
I read a lot about lost efficiency. I wanted to hit 1.075. I tried to do a "batch sparge" to get better efficiency by pumping out wort into a 4-gallon pot and adding back in 3 gallons of sparge water which I heated up on the propane burner. Despite pulling 3.5+ gallons into the pot, I could only add back in about 1.5 gallons to batch sparge. Re-circ'd that for about 10 minutes, lifted the mash pipe and then "fly sparged" the last 1.5 gallons. I hit 1.070 which was 65% efficiency. So I'm not sure if this batching attempt really helped or not. 1.070 will still get me with style range of a tripel.
The down side to this batch sparge attempt was the 3.5 drawn gallons had a lot of hot break. I added this to the wort to boil without running it through the grain bed. I caught an E3 error about 50 minutes into the boil. I cycled the power and all was well again. I assumed (rightly) that there was scorching going on. I keep boiling without the 1000 watt element on and made it through.
With 5 to go in the boil I turned on the pump to sanitize it - but it was clogged. After flame-out and at about 190 degrees I tried it again and it was unclogged. I feel comfortable that the wort was sanitized sufficiently at pasteur-temp/time. But all that hot break is begging for scorching or pump hole clogging. I could tell there was some scorching because the wort color darkened.
After pitching I cleaned the system. There was scorched material, not much, but some, on the bottom. It came off easily. I could not taste "burnt" in the sampled wort.
On the plus side, the 65L with 250V heats up to mash temps fast. I over shot 122 by using all 3 elements. Shut one down and mashed at 127 for the protein rest. Programmed the next step-mash temps with ease and it hit all step temps quickly. Step mashing in my cooler was laborious to say the least. Recirc'ing and heating was a breeze. Came to boil in 5-7 minutes - barely enough time to sip a beer.
I found myself playing with the heating elements a bit. Using all 3 elements was excessive at mash-in, 2 minutes after each step, and after 10 or so minutes of boil. It is hard to know when and which element is best to turn off or leave on. Hopefully someone with some knowledge on this subject will post this. I will make a log next time.
The brew session went fast. Step mashing was easy. A pump is a huge time and work saver. Having one pot, not a cooler and several pots was easier and less to clean. Coming to a boil was fast. Certainly spent less time by not fly sparging or step mashing with old school methods. I used the SS immersion chiller that came with the unit. I have two small immersion chillers in a 5 gallon cooler which I fill with ice. Chill water first goes from hose, trough immersions in the ice bath, then through the SS immersion chiller. The hot output is cleaning water. Once the wort hits 100, I use a fish pump to recirc the cooler's ice slurry through the immersion chillers. Within 5 hours I had mashed, boiled, chilled, cleaned and called it a day. That's 1/2 the time I used to spend. Holy cow, I am imagining all the beer I am now going to be able to brew on a Friday or Saturday night.
But the sacrifice is efficiency plus the risk of a scorch taste. I've gotten in the 90% range over the years with the cooler/keg set-up. For a smaller beers, no problem - buy $3.50 more grain. But I hate to be wasteful. On my next (smaller beer) I will batch sparge again but return the batch through the grain bed to see if it's worth the effort and clears up all the hot break.
How common is scorching and clogging? Can efficiency be gained doing a batch sparge? If so, is the juice worth the squeeze?