Advice on system upgrade

I would welcome some advice on possible upgrade path to my brewing setup.

It has been a steep learning curve during this first year all grain brewing, with selecting the appropriate equipment, panel build, programming PID controllers, getting my head around Beersmith and Brunwater software, and moving onto yeast slants.
In the dozen brews to date, I have been focusing on brewing technique, with small 20 pint batches.

My current set up is this:
A single 50L S/S vessel doubling up as hot water and liquor tank, a Colemans 33L cooler mash tun, and a STC 1000 controlling a fermentation fridge

Now I will never be a large scale brewer, I will only ever brew 40 pints at one brew.

Now that I have outlined my system and plans, I would appreciate your help on the following questions to help me decide the way forward.

1. With the existing set up, I have to manually jug water the measured amount (Beersmith value) from the boiler to the mash tun. This is no big deal as the quantities are not great. I also have to manually move a possible 40 pints into the 50L S/S vessel for boiling after measuring both quantities of liquor after batch sparging

What do the forum members do on their own smaller systems?

Do you have a pumped system? Is the sight glasses accurate enough when transferring liquid?

I usually only brew ale, and therefore no need for a stepped mash. That said, I feel that the general consensus that when using modified malt, it alleviates the need for a stepped mash unless you may be brewing a special lager or beer?

I am considering whether to upgrade to either a RIMS or HERMS system to maintain a constant mash temperature. The coolbox I have is OK but I wonder whether I could improve on this, albeit there is approx 2 degrees drop off over 90 mins.

What would your thoughts be on my efforts to improve my current system?

Would the benefits outweigh the expenditure and time for small brews?

A I best sticking with my current system and maybe upgrading to thermopot?

Look forward to your replies.

Best regards,
WM7793

I am new to this to with even more basic equipment, but make 40 pint (23 litre) batches no problem. I have a 33l plastic bucket with £5 tesco kettle element and a £15 24l cool box as a mash tun. I put a duvet over the mash tun and it loses under 1c in 75 mins in all 5 batches so far. The only thing I suggest you but is a plastic bucket with graduations on for filling and holding the liquid between the mash and boil. I use gravity to drain the water for hlt to mash tun & from mash tun to bucket thats then poured back into the HLT for the boil. I have taps on both, do you?

thats a busy 1st year

imho if your dropping 2C over 90mins as is, fill the lid and drape the tun with an old sleeping bag coats off the rack even the dirty laundry baskets contents and you will probably drop less than 1 degree - sorted..
a neater solution would be to recycle old boxes and make a mashing box to surround and enclose the tun with a hole cut for the tap.
And once set, dont open the tun till the mash is done
opening the tun and linning the inner skin exterior with foil or mylar may also improve its performance


my old branded viking 30l coleman off the shelf tun would hold well within 1 degree over 90 mins with a sleeping bag wrapping it and the lid filled with bubblewrap..

By all means have a play with knocking up a herms or rims kit for fun if it rings your bells but be prepared for it to balloon in cost, and remember if pulling liquor out of the insulated tun your going to loose even more heat before you start applying more.. i made a herms coil and once i was satisfied it worked it was shelved never again to see action till i recycled the copper coil


for measuring liquor volumes, a well calibrated sightglass will work well, i use a 50cm SS ruler as a dipstick in my 100l pots 1mm = 2l :)
I Dont leave the ss ruler in hot liquor, im sure the black ink marking the graduations isnt foodsafe, i just dip in to check..


but im moving to sit my tun on scales, 1l of water weighs 1kg
Post mash the liquor weighs its gravity in kilos, ie 1.030 gravity weighs 1.03kg per litre. mass wont vary at all with temp while volume will to a slight degree.


hope my ramblings are useful.

Thanks Simon12 and Fil for your replies. There are certainly improvements to the Colemans mash tun to be made to improve heat loss, and I will consider adding a sight glass to the S/S vessel so I can run off the required water direct into the mash tun without jugging it in. Good point about the addition of scales too, it was something that I had never thought of.

It appears from your experience Fil, that the Herms was unnecessary addition to your brewing kit !

Best regards,
WM7793

aye, but grand fun researching building and fiddling with

http://groceries.asda.com/asda-webstore/landing/home.shtml#/product/468668
probably the easiest and cheapest thing for the cool box.

I am afraid to say that I could not help myself!

I have just completed and awaiting a test run of a HERMS system. It is a separate 5L stainless steel vessel with copper piping and kettle element. I have gone overboard and installed 2 PT100's, one measuring the exit temperature of the Coleman's coolbox and the other the output from the HERMS coil. I built a small panel with 2 low cost PID's, one controlling the kettle element in the 5L pot, and the other purely for temperature of the wort exiting the coolbox.

Looking forward to my next brew!

What water/grist ratio would be optimal here? 2.5L/Kg as typically standard, or increase to say 3L/Kg because of the pumped HERMS to reduce stuck sparging?

Any advice would be most welcome.

Best regards,

WM7793

FIL,
my old branded viking 30l coleman off the shelf tun would hold well within 1 degree over 90 mins with a sleeping bag wrapping it and the lid filled with bubblewrap..
Cant remember the deadspace you told me ages ago for the mash tun, was it 1.5-2L m8?
ATB
Bri

Manxnorton said:

FIL,
my old branded viking 30l coleman off the shelf tun would hold well within 1 degree over 90 mins with a sleeping bag wrapping it and the lid filled with bubblewrap..
Cant remember the deadspace you told me ages ago for the mash tun, was it 1.5-2L m8?
ATB
Bri

Click to expand...

the deadspace was written in blue permanent felt tip on the tun rear iirc.. sorry i cant recall, but the deadspace written assumed a forward tip to remove the last runnings after a batch sparge..