Thanksgiving 2015 - First Batch IPA
Thursday was the first test for the Keggle Brewery. We decided to brew a favorite IPA recipe:
Without too much planning we started filling the HLT, and milling the grain. As you can see the mill I have almost fits on top of the Mash Keggle. I will put something together to adapt this before I brew again. The duplex outlets came in handy for attaching the drill, and we started to mill the 28 pounds of grain for this batch.
|
|
Unfortunately, we got pretty busy and stopped paying attention to the HLT filling. Note to self - Next time fill the HLT and start heating the water before milling the grain. It takes about 30 minutes to heat 15 gallons of water to the temp needed.
|
|
We used the mash calculator at Brewersfriend.com to calculate the strike water for our infusion - for a mash thickness we selected 1.5 qt/lb, which turned out to be 10.5 gallons at 170.9 degrees. Once we got things dried off we went back to work. We set the temperature on the HLT to 171F and it worked as expected. We set the markers on the HLT to remember when to stop adding water, Once the water got to temp we opened the valves and let the Mash Keggle fill. It turns out that 28 lbs of grain and 10.5 gallons of water filled the mash keggle nearly to the top, and after stirring things up a little the foam at the top overflowed a little. Nothing serious, but it did create a mess. No sense it trying to go that close to capacity on the mash. I'll either start with a thicker mash, or reduce the size of the recipe next time. The good news was that the mash calculation was dead on. With the default 3 degree offset for the brewery, the mash settled in at 155F, which was good because with the mash keggle full there wasn't any room to add more water from the HLT. We set the timer for 60 minutes and watched the temperature, stirring occasionally. We also re-filled the HLT and set the temp to 180F to be ready for the sparge. We took a few pH readings - I wasn't prepared to compensate, because with my smaller batches we were always in the 5.2 to 5.4 range. We started at 5.42, which seemed high but was OK, it finished up closer to 5.7. This may have limited conversion somewhat, and next time I will have some acidulated malt ready to add to lower the pH.
After 35 minutes we decided to see how the wort recirculation loop worked. We opened the mash-tun outlet valve all the way and set the flow regulation valve about half open, the turned on the wort pump. Everything worked great, and we were able to watch the clarity of the wort through the sight glass. As we suspected, there is an optimal flow rate that gets the filter bed working best. With the flow rate too high the wort doesn't clear - I think the return water disturbs the grain bed too much. We found that with the flow regulation valve at about 25% open it worked best - at least that was how it worked in our system.
After 35 minutes we decided to see how the wort recirculation loop worked. We opened the mash-tun outlet valve all the way and set the flow regulation valve about half open, the turned on the wort pump. Everything worked great, and we were able to watch the clarity of the wort through the sight glass. As we suspected, there is an optimal flow rate that gets the filter bed working best. With the flow rate too high the wort doesn't clear - I think the return water disturbs the grain bed too much. We found that with the flow regulation valve at about 25% open it worked best - at least that was how it worked in our system.
|
|
,With the recirculation loop running, the mash cooled a little quicker than expected. It dropped to 152F in about 5 minutes. That's a good thing to know, and if there was room in the mash keggle I would have added a little more water to get it back up to temp.
After 60 minutes in the Mash-Tun we started the sparge. Since our mash was pretty thin, and our Mash-Tun was very full we simply let the first 2 to 3 gallons pump into the boil keggle. The pump system worked great, and we spent some time trying to adjust the flow rate. Our goal was to slow the rate to a gallon every 3 minutes or so - this seems like a trickle of water into the boil keggle, but is probably the best way to get the most sugar out of the grains. During this process we realized that the wort in the boil kettle was warm and covering the heating element. With about 5 gallons of wort in the boil kettle we set the temperature set point to 208F and let it heat the wort during the rest of the sparge. As a result, the wort was over 200F when we finished the sparge. This is a big time saver.
With the wort in the boil keggle at 208F all we had to do was switch the controller from auto to manual and put in the hop filter. As it turns out, I didn't completely understand how the controller worked. The default setting was to suppress manual operation, so I had to go in and change that parameter, and then re-read the instruction manual to figure out how to change the display to show the percentage of capacity the heating element was at. The "bumpless" transfer described in the brochure wasn't quite that smooth for us as we played with the manual settings for a while, finally getting to a point where we found that a setting in the mid 40's maintained a pretty even boil.
The hop filter was a completely untested piece of equipment going into this brew. I slipped the 5 gallon paint filter over the frame I had made out of copper tubing and put a couple of spring clamps on it to make sure it didn't slide down as the heat might have compromised the elastic at the top of the bag. The bag fits easily over the frame without being too tight, and the frame extends down to about 2" above the heating element. I estimate that a 1/4 to a 1/3 of the wort in the boil keggle is inside the filter at any one time, and the wort flows freely through the filter. We added our hops at the intervals specified in the recipe and hoped the filter was doing it's job.
After 60 minutes in the Mash-Tun we started the sparge. Since our mash was pretty thin, and our Mash-Tun was very full we simply let the first 2 to 3 gallons pump into the boil keggle. The pump system worked great, and we spent some time trying to adjust the flow rate. Our goal was to slow the rate to a gallon every 3 minutes or so - this seems like a trickle of water into the boil keggle, but is probably the best way to get the most sugar out of the grains. During this process we realized that the wort in the boil kettle was warm and covering the heating element. With about 5 gallons of wort in the boil kettle we set the temperature set point to 208F and let it heat the wort during the rest of the sparge. As a result, the wort was over 200F when we finished the sparge. This is a big time saver.
With the wort in the boil keggle at 208F all we had to do was switch the controller from auto to manual and put in the hop filter. As it turns out, I didn't completely understand how the controller worked. The default setting was to suppress manual operation, so I had to go in and change that parameter, and then re-read the instruction manual to figure out how to change the display to show the percentage of capacity the heating element was at. The "bumpless" transfer described in the brochure wasn't quite that smooth for us as we played with the manual settings for a while, finally getting to a point where we found that a setting in the mid 40's maintained a pretty even boil.
The hop filter was a completely untested piece of equipment going into this brew. I slipped the 5 gallon paint filter over the frame I had made out of copper tubing and put a couple of spring clamps on it to make sure it didn't slide down as the heat might have compromised the elastic at the top of the bag. The bag fits easily over the frame without being too tight, and the frame extends down to about 2" above the heating element. I estimate that a 1/4 to a 1/3 of the wort in the boil keggle is inside the filter at any one time, and the wort flows freely through the filter. We added our hops at the intervals specified in the recipe and hoped the filter was doing it's job.
|
|
Once we had the boil keggle operating fairly autonomously, we were able to test out the cleaning process for the mash keggle. The keggle was still a little warm, so I put on some gloves and I disconnected the 3 tri-clover fittings. After that the keggle lifted out easily and I was able to dump/scoop much of the grain out. The sight gauge is something that I had to be a little careful of. it extends above the top of the keggle, and prevented me from turning the keggle completely over. I might look at shortening the sight gauge in the future, but overall the process was very easy. With the majority of the grain out of the keggle I put the keggle right side up and grabbed a hose to rinse the remaining grain out of the keggle. With the large opening in the bottom it was really easy. It took roughly 5 minutes to disassemble, clean and reassemble the mash keggle. That part of the design was a big success.
|
|
We did a 60 minute boil as the recipe called for. Once we got the controller figured out, it went pretty smoothly. The next step was to test out the plate chiller. We opened the boil keggle outlet valve, set the flow regulator valve at about 25% and positioned the chiiller recirculation valve so that the wort would recirculate back into the boil kettle with the inlet hose inside the hop filter bag. I put the output of the chiller water into the HLT so I could use the resulting warm water to start the cleaning process. I realize that it is late November in Virginia, and our tap water is pretty cold at this time of year, but I didn't expect the plate chiller to work anywhere near as effectively as it did - the video below shows just how well it worked. I has planned to have to recirculate the wort for "a while" not knowing how long it would take to get the temp to ~65F. As you can see, we didn't have to wait too long. This will probably change a little in the summer months, but even then the system should work well.
The wort transfer the to conical fermenter went without a hitch, and the wort temp was a solid 62F, which was about where I hoped it would be. The strain of yeast I am using works best between 65F and 70F, so once I move it inside the house it would warm up slightly and be fine.
With the wort safely in the fermenter, we pitched the yeast (I used 2 packets of White Labs - California Ale Yeast WLP001). We carried the fermenter inside and secured the airlock.
Back at the brew keggle it was time to start the cleaning process. This was a major portion of the design of my keggle system, and I was hoping it would work out. The hop filter was the first thing to check. We were pleasantly surprised to see that the hop filter had contained the vast majority of the hops, very little residual on the sides or bottom of the brew keggle. I was able to slip the paint strainer bag off the frame and at least for this batch simply dispose of the entire thing. I was able to buy 24 of these bags on Amazon for $24.95, so while I am sure that I can re-use a bag for a couple of batches, I was happy to dispose of it this time.
The goal with the boil keggle in this design was to be able to clean it in place. With the HLT and mash keggle filled with warm water from the chiller, I prepared for clean-up. I opened the boil keggle outlet valve, the flow regulator and drain valve, and put a bucket under the drain. I started slowly pumping warm water into the boil keggle and was able to clean all the sticky residue with a just a couple of gallons of warm water meaning I could use the rest of the water in the mash keggle to "rinse" the rest of the system. I pumped the water from the mash keggle through the recirculation valve for a couple of minutes to rinse that clean, then switched it over to the transfer the rest of the water to the boil kettle. From there I pumped it through the plate chiller and had completed the next stage of cleaning with very little effort.
For the final stage of cleaning I mixed some PBW in the HLT and started the final rinse. I have read that you don't want to leave the plastic sight gauges exposed to this solution for long periods of time, so I kept things moving. I opened both the mash-tun and boil kettle fill valves for a minute, then closed the boil keggle fill valve knowing that that line should now be clean. I pumped the PBW through the rest of the system, opened all the valves to let any remaining water drain out of the lines and dried out the remaining residue in each of the keggles. The process was very easy, and everything looks very clean. I'm sure that occasionally I will feel like I should do a more thorough cleaning...but to be honest, with this simple process the equipment looked as clean as before I started using it.
For the final stage of cleaning I mixed some PBW in the HLT and started the final rinse. I have read that you don't want to leave the plastic sight gauges exposed to this solution for long periods of time, so I kept things moving. I opened both the mash-tun and boil kettle fill valves for a minute, then closed the boil keggle fill valve knowing that that line should now be clean. I pumped the PBW through the rest of the system, opened all the valves to let any remaining water drain out of the lines and dried out the remaining residue in each of the keggles. The process was very easy, and everything looks very clean. I'm sure that occasionally I will feel like I should do a more thorough cleaning...but to be honest, with this simple process the equipment looked as clean as before I started using it.
In the end, the proof will be in the IPA. It seemed like everything went well, but there are some lingering questions about how well the hops were integrated with the boil. It certainly seemed like the hop filter worked the way I had hoped but it will be a couple of weeks before I will know for sure. The next update will probably be around Christmas when the First Batch IPA will be ready for sampling.