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All Grain #2

Finally brewed on July 03. Its an APA.

This page includes the lead up to my second all grain brew. I decided to make a couple of improvements to the equipment I used the first time round. I started the page before I even brewed my second AG because if you are anything like me (and I suspect lots of home brewers are), your equipment evolves and the brewing (well maybe the drinking) is the culmination of perhaps weeks of equipment preparation.

In anycase, all kegs are "loaded" at the moment so even if I was ready to brew I'm stuffed. So its drink like a fish to empty a keg (or wait a while).

Some time since the Belgian Wit I brewed I got it into my head to make my own RollerMill. This really caused a drought since it took so long, my beer supply ran dangerously low.

New Mash Tun

First I will say that if you are looking to buy an esky, April (in Oz) is not a good time. Stocks are pretty well depleted. Having said that, I have ended up with a decent cooler at a reasonable price, a Rubbermaid 50 Qt (48 litre). This was a "value kit" at Rays Outdoors. The sticker on the cooler was $89 but the shelf label was only $62 and "Ray" did the right thing by me. The SWMBO scored a couple of bonus coolers too.

I also checked out the selection at Bunnings, K-Mart, Big-W, Target and Plastics Unlimited (Fountain Gate). They mostly carry the same lines although there are exceptions, so if your requirements are very specific, it is worth checking out the different ranges. I guess the lead up to summer would be a different ball game.

I was initially reluctant to buy such a large, rectangular cooler because it would make for a thin grain bed. After chatting with various people, the consensus was that for batch sparging "size doesn't matter".

Once nice thing about this particular Rubbermaid cooler is that you can remove the tap and bung and the hole that is left will take half inch threaded brass tubing quite nicely. That means if I ever need to use it as an esky, I can just pop the bung back in and away we go.

Here is the hole in the cooler and the bits I took out of it.

Here is an approximation of what I plan to put in its place. I say approximation because I have run out of SS washers and I will probably put another nut on the outside or just tighten against the tap. The trick is to fix the tubing well and then put your fittings of choice on either end. It also doesn't show the SS braid, you can see what it will be like in PartialMash/3. The approximate names for these bits are:

1. 1/2" female tail/barb. The 1/2" refers to the thread size (even more confusing it is nothing like 1/2"), the barbs come in various sizes, you usually choose them to fit your tubing.
2. 1/2" flanged nut. I found these in Bunnings but I am sure you can get them elsewhere. The flange makes sealing a lot easier and they have good thread length.
3. O-ring. I am not sure that I will end up using an o-ring here (I might go with the fibre washer). The idea is that it gets squished against the cooler wall. You also need to seal the thread, I use teflon tape. O-rings you can pick up at just about any bearings joint. With a cooler you need to be careful not crush the cooler wall, this is a bit different from a brewpot where you can really tighten things up.

4. 1/2" threaded brass tube. The length is up to you, I will probably cut this one shorter so the tap is not sticking out like dog's balls.

5. 1/2" ball valve (1/4 turn). I got this from Industrial Fitting Sales in Noble Park for under $8. They have some other nifty taps there (see Equipment) in brass and stainless steel.

6. 1/2" male tail/barb. I could have used a male to female tap but the tap handle was on the female end and it would have been obstructed by the cooler.

Here I added another brass nut and a stainless steel washer for the outside of the cooler.

The arrangement I ended up with was the hardware above, a fibre washer on each side and a single o-ring on the inside. Tightened up firmly (don't squash the wall) it didn't leak.

This pic shows my two basic manifold/filter options. I have used the SS braid before with success so that is probably the way I will go but it is no big deal to swap over to the copper manifold at a later date. Strictly speaking I should screw a brass nipple on the end of the threaded pipe to take the compression fitting but leaks don't matter on this side (you want the wort to get out) so as long as it is mechanically sound I won't worry about it. Remember that there will be several kg of grain dumped on it and then there is the stirring.

A refinement of the braid option. The particular SS braid I have here is quite long so clamping it to a T will make better use of it. Without the figure 8 it just sprang to the perimeter of the cooler, this is just a way to improve the coverage. The first time I used it I noticed a big increase in flow (the faster the better with batch sparging by all accounts).

A close up of how the braid attaches to a T using SS hose clamps. The copper T is just a (tight) push fit onto the short length of copper pipe which is then attached to the brass nipple coming through the wall of the mashtun.

I have filled the lid with expanding urethane foam. It was just a hollow plastic arrangement originally and I don't really want to be tossing blankets on top of it to maintain the temperature. I think I sprayed a bit too much in there and now I have some bulges on the top - it seals just fine and holds temperature though, which is all that matters.

Bigger Burner

The other problem in my first full boil was the limited heat capacity of my kitchen stove. I have since been looking around at burner options and a 3-ring burner from Grangers Camping World for $36 is looking like the go. These are half the price that Rays have on identical units.

The cost of LPG is a bit of a sting though so I have also checked out some NG options. The downside of this is the plumbing and safety aspects. I did find some pretty serious burners in my search though. I dropped in at Techrite and the place is a pyromaniac's wetdream. One of the burners I actually got to hold was 290MJ (so I was told) which is enough to freeze your LPG tank. The people down there were very helpful with information and suggestions.

Also the folk at Gameco were helpful over the phone. One of the burners they suggested was a 82MJ, high pressure, LPG burner for which they supply the hose and adjustable HP regulator, all up around $160. I haven't seen it in the flesh and I would like to see how low the flame can go before lashing out.

I ended up with a smaller (55MJ), high pressure, LPG unit from Gameco which cost me $110 (adjustable regulator, 3m hose and burner):

The business end. 55MJ is apparently about the same output as a 5 ring burner (using standard low pressure regulator)¹. This burner also comes in a 2 ring version at 90MJ and $160. You can see the pilot light in this pic, they also have piezo models. I think in practice the pilot light will be quite handy since if I take evasive action to avoid a boilover then I don't have to worry about accidently turning the burner right off and stuffing around with matches.

The adjustable regulator. The burner itself also has two control valves (1 for burner, 2nd one for pilot light).

Roller Mill

This project was so involved that it has its own wiki page, see RollerMill. In so far as brew day was concerned, I had to add a hopper to the mill before I could start brewing.

50 Litre Converted Keg

This wasn't a planned thing, I saw one of these kegs in a scrapyard and figured "why not".

The fittings on the outside.

During the boil I decided to borrow the quick lock fitting I used on the mashtun. Because it grips the outside of the tube, there is no barb inside to restrict flow. I was pleased with the result.

And the pickup tube on the inside. Without this there would be many litres of dead volume. Even using this pickup tube you need to make sure your outlet (including whatever tubing you attach to the hose) is well below the level of the pickup inlet and that it doesn't leak air.

Recipe

Since I liked the APA I made in partial mash #1 so much I decided to scale up this recipe.

Batch size: 23 litres
Style: American Pale Ale

The Grind

This was something new for me. I had never seen a roller mill doing its stuff, much less operated one (well I have never made one before either). Check out the RollerMill page for more details.

While I was grinding I realised I had pinched some fittings from the mashtun to make the PartyKeg. This slowed down proceedings somewhat.

Mash Schedule

This was a basic, single step batch sparge (67°C) for an hour with 75° mashout. I mashed with 15 litres of water heated to 80° and I undershot my target temp a little (I checked at 10 minute mark) so I added some boiling water. I bought the water volume up to 21 litres at the end of mash, recirculated then drain as fast as I could. Sparge was 15 litres @ 75°C I stir, allow some settling, stir, recirculate then drain as fast as possible.

I ended up with a boil gravity of 1.044, if my calculations are correct (assume 30L boil volume) then I hit 90% efficiency.

As an aside I have previously used plastic tubing with brass or plastic barbed fittings. This time round I used a brass "quick lock" fitting (see quick lock on brewpot) that grabs the outside of the tube. I found the runoff was much faster than I have ever had before and this probably contributed (also had a longer braid as a manifold). Barbs tend to have a much smaller ID than the tubing used to transport the fluid.

See also BatchSparge.

The Boil

There was nothing much to say about the boil except that I used the SS keg pot and the new burner. These high pressure burners give you very good control over the heat and can bring the wort to the boil quickly.

I had to make some running repairs to the wort chiller before I could chill - that was just a matter of gluing on a hose snap-on fitting to one end.

While I was draining to the fermenter I got a little distracted and drained a fair bit of the dregs into the FV. Nevermind. I probably need to bend the pickup tube a bit further up and out (not to mention be a little more patient after whirlpooling).

I ended up with 24 litres in the fermenter at 1.055 OG.

Fermentation

One new thing was the use of a dry American Ale yeast Saf 56. It will be interesting to see how this goes. As with my previous brew, I strapped the temperature sensor (thermostat bulb) to the side of the fermenter to provide better control over the wort temperature.

After 9 days in primary, I turned down the thermostat to around 2°C for settling and then kegged 5 days later. The final gravity was under 1.011. I had a bit of a taste when kegging it and it isn't as sweet as my previous APA's. This is most likely due to a number of factors, including the use of an all grain recipe (often reported as attenuating better than extract based recipes) and the use of SAF 56 yeast, which I haven't previously used.