Sealed Mash tun?

[Elfmaze]

I have a three vessel RIMS system and just picked up an interesting kettle that was able to pressurize to transfer the boiled wort into the fermentor.

I don't know if im going to use it for my BK as I'm pretty happy with my current BK... But what about as a mash tun. once you have boiled off all the O2 in the HLT and started recirculating LODO strike water wouldn't a co2 purged sealed Mash tun virtually eliminate any risk of O2 effecting the wort?

 

[Schlenkerla]

I have a three vessel RIMS system and just picked up an interesting kettle that was able to pressurize to transfer the boiled wort into the fermentor.

I don't know if im going to use it for my BK as I'm pretty happy with my current BK... But what about as a mash tun. once you have boiled off all the O2 in the HLT and started recirculating LODO strike water wouldn't a co2 purged sealed Mash tun virtually eliminate any risk of O2 effecting the wort?

I think so. I believe @Die_Beerery does something like that.

 

[mongoose33]

I have a three vessel RIMS system and just picked up an interesting kettle that was able to pressurize to transfer the boiled wort into the fermentor.

When I'm done boiling I run the boiled wort through a counterflow chiller....I let it recirculate in the BK so the cold break precipitates out. I use a Riptide pump to pump the wort into the fermenter.

Is there an advantage to using pressure? Is the pressure that of CO2, and the goal is to eliminate O2 pickup as you go from BK to fermenter?

I'm not sure it would matter much--we need to oxygenate the wort anyway if we used a starter, so it's not clear how much difference that makes.

If using dry yeast....maybe. You don't generally have to oxygenate the wort if using dry yeast. I don't know how much of the headspace above the wort in a BK could actually be replaced with CO2, though you could clearly knock down the amount of O2 occupying that space.

I don't know if im going to use it for my BK as I'm pretty happy with my current BK... But what about as a mash tun. once you have boiled off all the O2 in the HLT and started recirculating LODO strike water wouldn't a co2 purged sealed Mash tun virtually eliminate any risk of O2 effecting the wort?

I've given thought to the same thing from a different angle--I use a stainless kettle lid as a mash cap but it doesn't cover all the surface, just about maybe 85 or 90 percent. I've wondered about things like slowly bleeding CO2 into the headspace of the mash tun (same kind of idea, more or less), to eliminate intake of O2 into the mash.

If yours was enclosed, you could theoretically purge the headspace.....

<thinking out loud ON> One reason I use campden tablets (crushed) in my strike water after pre-boiling is to act as an oxygen scavenger during the mash. That's to offset my imperfect mash cap. I'm wondering just how much O2 uptake there is during the mash. The wort coming out of the mash tun is much more flavorful than w/o LODO concern, so I know what I'm doing is working....at least to some extent.

Wondering how much gain I could have if I could completely isolate the mash from the atmospheric O2.....

<still thinking> Along the same lines, after I add the crushed grain to the MT but before I begin underletting, I hit that mash tun with 30-60 seconds of CO2 through the valve and sight glass, trying to purge that MT from the bottom up. Then when the strike water is going in, the theory is the water pushes the CO2 up through the grain as it rises, ending up with a MT headspace of more CO2 than would otherwise be the case.

And I thought my setup looked complicated. Holy cow! Would you give us a detailed explanation of what's going on there?

 

[Schlenkerla]

When I'm done boiling I run the boiled wort through a counterflow chiller....I let it recirculate in the BK so the cold break precipitates out. I use a Riptide pump to pump the wort into the fermenter.

Is there an advantage to using pressure? Is the pressure that of CO2, and the goal is to eliminate O2 pickup as you go from BK to fermenter?

I'm not sure it would matter much--we need to oxygenate the wort anyway if we used a starter, so it's not clear how much difference that makes.

If using dry yeast....maybe. You don't generally have to oxygenate the wort if using dry yeast. I don't know how much of the headspace above the wort in a BK could actually be replaced with CO2, though you could clearly knock down the amount of O2 occupying that space.



I've given thought to the same thing from a different angle--I use a stainless kettle lid as a mash cap but it doesn't cover all the surface, just about maybe 85 or 90 percent. I've wondered about things like slowly bleeding CO2 into the headspace of the mash tun (same kind of idea, more or less), to eliminate intake of O2 into the mash.

If yours was enclosed, you could theoretically purge the headspace.....

<thinking out loud ON> One reason I use campden tablets (crushed) in my strike water after pre-boiling is to act as an oxygen scavenger during the mash. That's to offset my imperfect mash cap. I'm wondering just how much O2 uptake there is during the mash. The wort coming out of the mash tun is much more flavorful than w/o LODO concern, so I know what I'm doing is working....at least to some extent.

Wondering how much gain I could have if I could completely isolate the mash from the atmospheric O2.....

<still thinking> Along the same lines, after I add the crushed grain to the MT but before I begin underletting, I hit that mash tun with 30-60 seconds of CO2 through the valve and sight glass, trying to purge that MT from the bottom up. Then when the strike water is going in, the theory is the water pushes the CO2 up through the grain as it rises, ending up with a MT headspace of more CO2 than would otherwise be the case.



And I thought my setup looked complicated. Holy cow! Would you give us a detailed explanation of what's going on there?

I think another picture without the background noise would help. I was wondering if the pump is attached or in the background. Looks like it's sitting on the ground. Photobombin' your picture.

 

[Vale71]

once you have boiled off all the O2 in the HLT and started recirculating LODO strike water wouldn't a co2 purged sealed Mash tun virtually eliminate any risk of O2 effecting the wort?

Sure it would, provided you also manage to purge your mill and provide a sealed, purged conduit from the mill to the mash tun, all of which could prove quite challenging.

 

[Schlenkerla]

Sure it would, provided you also manage to purge your mill and provide a sealed, purged conduit from the mill to the mash tun, all of which could prove quite challenging.

Since you go that far...

What about wet milling with LODO treated water at 176F/80C to kill the lipoxydase enzyme?


FWIW - I read that in Kunze.

 

[Vale71]

That would be ideal, wouldn't it?

 

[Elfmaze]

And I thought my setup looked complicated. Holy cow! Would you give us a detailed explanation of what's going on there?

The Boil kettle was built on the concept that pumps after the boil can damage Hop esters A concept gained from Alchemist brewing as I understand the story. So those are a set of CO2 valves on the top of the kettle to pressurize the BK after boil to move the wort through the chiller into the fermentor. the rest of his build was documented here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/bucks-electric-brewery.479895/

 

[Elfmaze]

Since you go that far...

What about wet milling with LODO treated water at 176F/80C to kill the lipoxydase enzyme?


FWIW - I read that in Kunze.

As i understand wet milling is part of the fun... One of the problems with the mythical low oxygen brewing is it is soo easy to mess it up. I read that it only takes one min of o2 exposure to "ruin" the LODO brewing effect. hence high precautions at every stage are needed, no step can be omitted.

 

[Schlenkerla]

As i understand wet milling is part of the fun... One of the problems with the mythical low oxygen brewing is it is soo easy to mess it up. I read that it only takes one min of o2 exposure to "ruin" the LODO brewing effect. hence high precautions at every stage are needed, no step can be omitted.

Well, that might be true without the application of metabisulfates. You have to evaluate every egress point along the way. Most of us are doing it with some bit of metabisulfates or they have the details worked out like you're thinking in your first post.

 

[Vale71]

Never knew that hops have esters before. You learn something new every day, or maybe not.

 

[Schlenkerla]

Never knew that hops have esters before. You learn something new every day, or maybe not.

Hmm??? [emoji848]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ester

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith

 

[Elfmaze]

Hmm??? [emoji848]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ester

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith

a bit above my pay grade, I think I get what your saying though... Esters are chemicals created by yeast? John Kimmich is the Hop master to ask

EDIT: Hop "resins" may have been the correct term

 

[Vale71]

Actually it turns out that there are esters in hops but their relevance is still not well understood. And then some will form later in the beer as a result of the spontaneous esterification (mostly with ethanol, for obvious reasons) of fatty acids provided by hops as well as by malt but that is a well understood phenomen. So not all esters are actually created by yeast's metabolism although most of them are.

But the thing with the pumps damaging them is really knew to me.

 

[Bilsch]

Sure it would, provided you also manage to purge your mill and provide a sealed, purged conduit from the mill to the mash tun, all of which could prove quite challenging.

How about some advice on this topic from someone who actually brews low oxygen, without sulfites using a purged mashtun.

You definitely do not need to purge your mill or the conduit to your MT. You simply mill the grain dry and (without delay) put it in your sealed mashtun. You then purge it by either straight flushing with nitrogen (like I do), or do vacuum then pressure purge cycles (what the Beerery does) before underletting. Simple as that.

I think I see what that guy was doing with the pressurized BK. If he as you said moved the hot wort through a external chiller then into the fermenter, the time the hot wort sits in contact with the air can start the damage. If he pushed with CO2 then the hot wort is protected. We add oxygen after the mash BUT only after the temperature is lowered to ferment temp. At the lower temps the oxygen has much less chance of staling the hop and malt flavors before yeast can scavenge it.

 

[Die_Beerery]

This is most almost certainly Pat's ( @trimixdiver1 ) kettle.

It saddens me to see this system come apart. He was a lox oxygen fully automated brewer. There are very few of us!

I employ a similar setup that is sealed, and using sealed/purged vessels, I am able to achieve very low DO levels (sub 250ppb on the hot side).

 

[Elfmaze]

This is most almost certainly Pat's ( @trimixdiver1 ) kettle.


It saddens me to see this system come apart. He was a lox oxygen fully automated brewer. There are very few of us!

I employ a similar setup that is sealed, and using sealed/purged vessels, I am able to achieve very low DO levels (sub 250ppb on the hot side).

That would be it, and super sad but hes always got a new project going to keep him self busy! I'm impressed your rocking the micromotions as well! Quick question since I try not bothering Pat too much with questions, Why didn't he use a sealed Mash tun? and I see he used an "o2 absorber" column along with his trim chiller... What did he have in the O2 absorber column? I wish I would have paid more attention when I was over there and the brewery was running. But my mind stopped at "spaceship" Its taken me two weeks dissecting what he was doing and how to put this stuff back into good use.

 

[Die_Beerery]

That would be it, and super sad but hes always got a new project going to keep him self busy! I'm impressed your rocking the micromotions as well! Quick question since I try not bothering Pat too much with questions, Why didn't he use a sealed Mash tun? and I see he used an "o2 absorber" column along with his trim chiller... What did he have in the O2 absorber column? I wish I would have paid more attention when I was over there and the brewery was running. But my mind stopped at "spaceship" Its taken me two weeks dissecting what he was doing and how to put this stuff back into good use.

He never got there. He was retrofitting everything to adopt a full low oxygen setup. In the column he had an o2 stone and used N2 to deoxygenate the water for brewday.

 

[Elfmaze]

He never got there. He was retrofitting everything to adopt a full low oxygen setup. In the column he had an o2 stone and used N2 to deoxygenate the water for brewday.

I'm having some difficulty finding reference to N2 use for O2 absorbtion. I'm guessing it reduces to N2O? I know Pat had a lot of knowledge about Scuba diving and gas mixtures.

 

[Die_Beerery]

N2 as a striping gas is quite common. I don't think you are searching the right terms. CO2 can be used as well, but the carbonic acid needs to be accounted for.

I do the same.

 

[Vale71]

I'm having some difficulty finding reference to N2 use for O2 absorbtion. I'm guessing it reduces to N2O? I know Pat had a lot of knowledge about Scuba diving and gas mixtures.

The term you need to look for is scrubbing or stripping, not adsorption.

 

[Die_Beerery]

Brewed today, and here are the logs from my mash tun and DO (the first is the purge with the grain, and the second is the DO from the strike in. I have very sensitive industrial DO probes in all the vessels, one in the bottom of the tun and one in the headspace.
Red is in the bottom of the vessel, Blue in the top, measurements are in ppm, so bottom was 16ppb, and top was around 200ppb

dough in-

Again the colors stay the same probes. You can see the o2 from doughin get pushed into the headspace, from the underletting where it spikes at about 1ppm, but then falls. Once everything settles, I see about 100ppb in the bottom and about 250ppb in the top. This lends itself to tons of fresh lingering grain flavor, sorry I mean lends itself to tons of confirmation bias.

 

[Elfmaze]

Brewed today, and here are the logs from my mash tun and DO (the first is the purge with the grain, and the second is the DO from the strike in. I have very sensitive industrial DO probes in all the vessels, one in the bottom of the tun and one in the headspace.
Red is in the bottom of the vessel, Blue in the top, measurements are in ppm, so bottom was 16ppb, and top was around 200ppb

dough in-

Again the colors stay the same probes. You can see the o2 from doughin get pushed into the headspace, from the underletting where it spikes at about 1ppm, but then falls. Once everything settles, I see about 100ppb in the bottom and about 250ppb in the top. This lends itself to tons of fresh lingering grain flavor, sorry I mean lends itself to tons of confirmation bias.

 

[Elfmaze]

Interesting, I have two DO meters but I think they are both probe type(I'll post em up when I get home and start figuring out what I have). An inline DO probe has much better potential for data logging and figuring out a process that works. I'm guessing between using my 9000watt HLT to quickly boil the strike water and then using a trim chiller with n2 injection to drop it back down to strike temps, feeding in from the bottom of the MLT so as to not splash much should get me damn close to what I need without wasting too much N2. The N2 physics I'm still working on understanding. but I have found a few more references to DO reduction.

Research paper on DO reduction:
https://www.researchgate.net/public..._Water_A_Comparison_of_Four_Common_Techniques

Not much youtube content on it though I've found yet. Sounds simple enough to setup and test once I get the concept down in my head.

 

[Die_Beerery]

Yes this is what I do, only I have 11k watts in the HLT.

It takes me 45 minutes from on button to be doughed in. That includes a boil/cool down of the HLT (while N2 striping as well) and purging the grain and all the vessels/piping.

 

[Bilsch]

This lends itself to tons of fresh lingering grain flavor, sorry I mean lends itself to tons of confirmation bias.

Ha!!
Gotta love (accurate) data.

 

[Elfmaze]

These are the two DO meters I have... don't know too much about them yet. have some more reading to do how to use them

 

[Die_Beerery]

These are the two DO meters I have... don't know too much about them yet. have some more reading to do how to use them

Yea those are probably not going to do what you need them to do. They are meant moreso for cooled samples, and nothing inline or logging.

 

[Elfmaze]

Yea those are probably not going to do what you need them to do. They are meant moreso for cooled samples, and nothing inline or logging.

Just for fun... what does a inline O2 monitor look like? I know it will probably price me out for now. But good idea what to keep an eye out for.

 

[RiverCityBrewer]

When it's inline its not really a single piece... there is a sensor or probe, a housing, and a transmitter. A probe needs to be paired with a compatible transmitter, or vice versa, and the transmitter typically outputs a 4-20ma signal to a PLC or other monitoring device. As for what they physically look like, it varies, but look up Mettler Toledo or Broadley James on eBay or the like, and you'll see lots of configuration examples.