Going Large - Today's the Day

[cushyno]

AHH, no! That's really unfortunate. That's the risk you run with operating brewery kit you don't know inside out. If you are left to manage the equipment yourself it's the finer points like understanding how much power you can put through the elements without scorching that could catch you out.

It's a bold decision to go again with another batch!

It looks like the kettle is segmented between the elements. Is that to make it easier to trap trub? It will make it difficult to avoid grain debris from settling on the elements while bringing up to the boil. If you have a way to recirculate or a paddle to stir the wort constantly, that may help. Using lower power while bringing to boil will also mitigate the scorching risk to some degree.

I know this is a wheat beer so needs some cloudiness, but could you have vorlaufed more until the wort was clearer going into the kettle?

I'm no expert by any means but I have had to deal with scorching before, so just suggesting some areas for consideration. Good luck!

 

[phillc]

It's a bold decision to go again with another batch!

The brewer was kind enough to offer us this second batch at no cost, seeing as the first one was a failure. Nothing to lose really, except ingredients and time.

Basically, all the wort, including grains, is transferred from the main kettle into the lauter tun before the boil. The grain is left behind here during sparging, before the wort is transferred back to the main tun before the boil. So really there shouldn't be all that much grain trub, but of course there will be some.

The "segmentation" in that earlier picture are actually the stirring paddles. There's a set under the heating elements and another set above (they're offset by 90 degrees from the lower ones and you can only see the top of one of those in the picture). However, we also noticed that there were a couple of times where the stirrer seemed to stop during the boil. We're looking into why that happened and how to rectify it before the next brew.

We plan to use lower power to bring to the boil. We're also talking with the brewer about the possibility to install some voltage regulators (the benefit of working with a small, hotel brewer is that he seems pretty flexible to work with us).

 

[cushyno]

Nothing to lose really, except ingredients and time.

Fabulous. That's some consolation. So you're getting to play with the kit free of charge. Great!

The "segmentation" in that earlier picture are actually the stirring paddles. There's a set under the heating elements and another set above

That makes sense. I had thought there would paddles. It's tricky to see from the photo that they are above and below the elements. So, with the ability to keep the wort moving you should be fine, so long as the paddles can be kept moving at the right time.

We plan to use lower power to bring to the boil.

If the system uses PID for temperature control you may be able to reduce the rapidity of the heating by steadily increasing the PID set temperature rather than setting to target temperature (boil). My understanding is the PID should begin switching on/off as it approaches the target temperature leading to lower heat intensity at the element. That may be an option if you can't fit voltage regulators, but you'd need to keep upping the set temperature until close to boil.

 

[phillc]

Time for another update. This one is somehow embarrassing, because it's a fine example of perhaps not undertaking enough due diligence.

Earlier in this thread I mentioned:

The brewer was super casual and some things struck us as maybe not the best practice you'd find in a new commercial brewery.

Turns out this was probably an understatement. When we originally visited this brewery we tasted some of the beverages produced there (mead actually) and it was all good. Looking around, things seemed reasonably well ordered, even if "rustic". Ultimately, we've just spent the last two days solidly cleaning the entire place, and still aren't completely finished.

Our first batch of beer had a distinct charcoal or ashtray flavour. Why? Mostly likely because of heating elements that looked like this:

Yes, charcoal encrusted heating elements. Horrid. We should have taken a much closer look deep inside the mash tun. Not sure how this could ever produce beer that didn't taste like ash.

Anyway, our first big challenge was actually accessing the heating elements. Due to the installation of the mash tun this involved removing rivets on the outside copper sheath, and then leaning the whole thing over at an acute angle, because the roof and top of the stirrer motor were to close together to allow removal of the top of the tun.

It took us the whole first morning to get to this point. We tried removing the heating elements individually first, but that didn't really work either, because of the retaining nut inside the tun. A small child through the larger top port? I'd left my 7yr old at home.

Once the top was removed, we started cleaning the heating elements. It took nearly a day and half to reach a point where we thought they are probably now fit for purpose, although still not perfect.

After re-assembling everything late yesterday afternoon, we found a problem with the pressure sensor, so were unable to fully test everything was in working order.

As well as cleaning the heating elements, we scrubbed, and scrubbed and scrubbed anything and everything. Brewing really is 80% cleaning!

We plan our next brew on Sunday, June 20th and hope for improved results.

On a really positive note, the brewer is completely happy for us to pretty much do as we wish, as long as we ask first. He hasn't brewed much since before COVID lockdown, apart from a few large batches of mead, and appears to have his focus elsewhere at the moment (running his current hotel post-lockdown and renovating a new one). It feels like, if we have everything fixed and operating properly, we could just about have the run of the place. The brewer has already mentioned that he might just ask us to brew his hotel event beer for him.

We see all of this as a huge opportunity to learn - to learn brewing at scale and also to learn what we would/would not do if/when we eventually setup for ourselves.

 

[DocAnna]

Looking at your efforts, it seems the owner is getting a pretty good deal out of you reconditioning the equipment for use. You've clearly put a great deal of time and effort into this, very impressive!

 

[phillc]

Looking at your efforts, it seems the owner is getting a pretty good deal out of you reconditioning the equipment for use. You've clearly put a great deal of time and effort into this, very impressive!

Thanks. It was a long weekend and Monday of work. We had originally planned to clean on Sunday, brew on Monday. We definitly underestimated the effort required on the heating elements.

Obviously don't want to go into all the details on a public forum, but there is a nice quid pro quo between us and the brewer for the work we've put in

 

[cushyno]

That's a huge amount of effort, well done @phillc ! Best news it's that you've found the source of your problem and it's unlikely to cause you trouble in the next batch.

Just a thought...
If you've scrubbed everything in sight somewhat vigorously, will any of your stainless steel including elements need passivating again?

 

[matt76]

Crikey, that sounds like a lot of hard graft - I salute you and the rest of your brewing cohort for your efforts! I hope things go more smoothly from now on, best of luck with your brewing adventures, I'm sure I'm not the only one who's just a teensy bit jealous of you guys brewing on a larger scale like this

 

[phillc]

That's a huge amount of effort, well done @phillc ! Best news it's that you've found the source of your problem and it's unlikely to cause you trouble in the next batch.

Just a thought...
If you've scrubbed everything in sight somewhat vigorously, will any of your stainless steel including elements need passivating again?

We hope it's the source of the problem, and the small amount left on there won't effect 300-400 litre batches. This risk is of course still fresh burning or scalding. However, we also found and fixed a fault with the stirrer, which may have meant it occasionally stopped during the boil. With this fixed as well, we hope we're in a good position.

Passivating is a good point. The plan for Saturday morning is to spray/flush everything with citric acid, which is about the best we can do at the moment. Then we follow this with another soak with Chemipro CIP solution and then a fresh water rinse.

If you have any tips on passivating effectively, I'd appreciate hearing them.

 

[cushyno]

Metallic taste from a couple of kegs has been a recent issue for me. This cake up recently in another thread and gained a suitable answer from @foxy
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/funny-taste.94863/post-1047794I followed the link and instructions, opting for a 5x strength starsan solution as the acid. I don't know if it how well it has worked but early signs it has done the trick.

 

[phillc]

Next brew day tomorrow. Going for 400L. Really hoping it all goes smoothly and those heating elements perform as expected. We've just spent nearly three full days cleaning absolutely everything. Feel like we know the brewery much better now too.

Clean in place process was the last thing we did this afternoon, using Chemipro CIP solution. Just needed an excuse to upload this video......

 

[Polcho]

Hope this goes well for you this time.

 

[phillc]

First challenge of the day - we signed up to Breww brewery management software, which is a fully cloud based service. This morning it is "503 Service Temporarily Unavailable." We've started the day by manually re-calculating our grain bill.

 

[clyne]

Loving reading this thread - keep it up @phillc

 

[phillc]

Yesterday was a long day. Thirteen hours door to door (brewery is only a 30 minute drive from home).

Apart from the screw up with the software, which did come back online around 10:00, we lost a lot of time with various things. Some just through lack of knowledge, maybe others we need to have a rethink.

On Saturday, we'd already filled the mash tun with 400 litres of water. First thing on Sunday morning was to turn on the heating. It took more than 90 minutes to reach the desired 45 degrees. Of course we did things in parallel, like crushing the grain, but still we had some down time waiting for the water to heat. Subsequently, when the brewery owner actually arrived around lunch time he showed us a way to fill the mash tun with water already warmed to 45 degrees. Damn it. Anyway, we'll know for next time.

We then had a stuck mash in the lauter tun. Not really a stuck sparge, as we hadn't added any sparge water. This was just getting the wort to drain through the mash after transferring everything from the mash to lauter tun. It took forever, and we had to stir up the grain bed to finish. Not ideal. We're considering adding rice or oat husks/hulls next time. This idea seriously threatens the Rheinheitsgebot manhood of my brewing partners, but practically, we all agree that saving two hours of messing about with a stuck mash would be a good thing. Also, we're probably never going to sell Austrian wheat beer in Germany, so it's not really that big a deal.

Then the plate cooler clogged. Transferring the wort from the mash tun, after the boil, to the fermenter via the plate cooler took forever. We had to back flush the plate cooler a couple of times to clear blockages. This probably happened because we stirred up the grain bed during lautering and a reasonable amount of trub made it back into the mash tun.

Then general things like hose fittings not fitting caused delays. There was a certain amount of, "No, this hose won't fit on this pump. Wait, if we add this adaptor.... Hang on, that won't work either as the adaptor is needed on the other side. Etc, etc" I think this kind of thing is just about getting to know the brewery better and how everything all fits together.

The good news is that we seemed to hit our numbers. About 16°P after mashing and 12.8°P as it went into the fermenter. The wort also tasted nice and sweet. Not a hint of burning so far. Our biggest concern at the moment is starch content. We have a sample for an iodine test later today, so we'll soon find out if it's likely to cause a problem.

I didn't capture many interesting pictures yesterday. Mostly my photos are close ups of machinery, showing settings and controls, to be used in some kind of standard operating procedure document we plan to write. Instead, I'll share a picture from Saturday. Best to start them young.....

I also have a related thread running, where I've built and installed a WiFi based monitor and controller for fermentation temperature.

 

[DocAnna]

@phillc It is brilliant to read along with your efforts to make this brewery work and the experience gained along the way, insightful and eye opening to the work involved. While the problems you encounter are a bit depressing, your solutions and pure hard graft to resolve them are uplifting in the end. I am full of admiration for you and your group's determination to make this work. Thank you for posting the updates, and please do keep us all posted on the fermentation .

Anna

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Fantastic work - I salute you!
It’s fantastic reading this thread, thanks very much for sharing

 

[AXW123]

Really interesting. Have you any updates on the beer fermentation?

 

[Gerryjo]

A fantastic thread @phillc and a credit to you all for the hard work, perseverance and shear determination to get this going.Looking forward to your updates...

 

[starseeker]

I can only agree with Gerryjo has said ,great thread