7/31 Inaugural Brew Day

4 weeks of design and construction after my last brew was too much work on a bucket brewing system. I decided if we were going to do this and have fun at it we needed some new tools. And if we were going to spend any money, we might as well start moving toward a bigger (10 gal) system. 5 Gallons is nice, but frankly a brew day is a lot of work for 50 beers...100 sounds more reasonable ;-)

Thanks to Becca (the Brew Master) and my friend George for the help and support during design and build. Further thanks to MoreBeer for having stock of excellent, well priced brewing supplies.

Dawn at the newly constructed Brew House
Features:
- Pump mounted under the lower bench, safe from falling liquids, will save me from lifting 70 pounds of water and mash, risking destruction of my back and brewing supplies ;-)
- The new 14 gallon Brew Kettle
- Two 48 qt Igloo Coolers for the Mash Tun and Hot Liquor Tank. Though a lot of money was spent here, the coolers are $13 a piece, and hold mash temperatures very well. I can break down the coolers and prepare them for a camping trip in about 10 minutes. Only the MT has any aftermarket holes in it, and the original drain valves are ready to go.
- Removable copper pumping manifold used for transferring hot water to the MT and HLT, Vorlauf, and Sparge. All hoses are on Quick Disconnects.
- Valves are nickel plated brass, note the drain valve which is KEY for eliminating air locks in the pump, CIP, and
general draining of the system away from clean areas and electical devices
- Clear hose connects the mash vessels to the recirc path so wort clarity can be monitored during Vorlauf
- Sparge inlet has its own ball valve for flow control, mash vessel valves are all CPVC
Mash Tun with the Wort Collection Manifold Removed...copper, stainless braided hose, and ss hose clamps...worked really well!
Lucy watches as Becca mashes in 10 lbs of 2 Row and .5 lb of Cara-Pils
The Brew Master enjoys a drink and reads the paper while I toil to improve the quality of the beer. Secretly, she is a process control specialist for a major brewing company.
Beer Smith and Napster...brewers' best friends.
3.5 gallons of water and 10.5 pounds of grain at 155 degrees
We learned a lot about our system today. Initially undershooting the strike water temperature (losses to the copper and water in the pipes), we tried 3 times to get the 170 degree water to the MT, only to put in a little too much and over-shoot mash in temperature to 160 instead of 154. Now that we have an efficient mash tun, the idea will be to undershoot and then add more water if necessary.
We start to Vorlauf (set the grain bed and recirculate the wort to clarify it) I am very happy because the contraption that I built is working! The wort gets very clear after a few minutes.
Mash Tun View of Vorlauffing
Boiling the Wort...another lesson we learned...did not adjust the hydrometer readings for temperature...so we cut the wort collection short fearing that we were collecting water and diluting what was in the kettle, an already low (so we thought) OG. The good news is we ultimately ended up just a little over on OG, 1.054 vs 1.052, but we collected a gallon less wort than we should have. We took good data on first and last Gravity readings.
Cool took 45 mins on a 90 degree day...not too bad.
Finally, we made it to the fermenter. I forgot to take pictures of the strainer in the kettle...it is another length of stainless braided hose that forms a circle into a copper T, which is press-fit into the kettle outlet (actually the nipple that mounts the ball valve). It removed what I would say was 80% of the hops and Trub, though we were light on trub due to the mash temp overshoot. I think the strainer was a great addition though.
These are the paths that we use during a typical brew.
This is a picture of the kettle strainer.