I brewed on Wednesday and this is how it went.Noon - Stop at BIY on way home for lunch from work. Pick up a few specialty grains I was missing. The brew is basically a Pliny the Elder clone. Over lunch weigh out grain and crush. Fill HLT with 12.5 gallons of water (5 gallon batch in the end) and add water treatment stuff. Turn on electric HLT and set to desired mash temperature 152F.
5:15 – Arrive home from work, pump mash water from already heated HLT to mashtun and mix in grain. I mash in low, hook up tubing to HERMS coil in HLT and start the pump. The mash will rise up to desired mash temp set on the HLT. The pump runs during my entire mash. This will maintain the mash right where I want it.
5:20 – Go pick up my kids from neighbors house. That is where they all went after school this week while my wife was out of town. Mash should be fine.
5:45 – Arrive back home, check mash temp, it is perfect. Cook dinner. Spaghetti was the dish of the evening. Used pre-made sauce, so not much to it.
6:15 – Check mash, it is all good. Set PID for HLT to 168F and leave pump running. Mash temp will rise to mashout with temp increase in HLT. Add FWH to boil kettle so I don’t forget later. Go back upstairs, load dishwasher, then help the kids with homework.
6:45 – Start sparge. I pump from my mashtun to the boil kettle. I recently added an AutoSparge to the mashtun so I open the ball valve on the HLT and leave it be. Flow is controlled by the ball valve on the pump and the AutoSparge keeps the liquid in the mashtun under control. I turn on the gas burner once at least 4 gallons of wort is collected. I try to sparge as slow as I can without the flow stopping. Go back upstairs and do family stuff.
7:15 – Sparge is complete. The burner is already running, and getting close to boiling temp.
7:20 – Begin 90 minute boil. Hops are already in it from FWH addition. Once boil seems good to go, time to attend to kids again. Next addition is in an hour.
7:30 – Get kids in to PJ’s, review homework, listen to piano and violin practices, brush teeth, read bedtime stories and take care of any other miscellaneous items.
8:20 – Most of the kids are in bed, return to brewery and make the next hop addition. Head back upstairs to get rest of kids in to bed.
8:30 – All kids in bed, return to brewery, empty mashtun and clean, make hop additions , move whirlpool immersion chiller from HLT (HERMS) to boil kettle, toss in a whirlfloc.
8:50 – Boil is done, cut burner, quick chill to 200F, add whirlpool hops and using the pump, whirlpool for 30 minutes.
9:20 – Turn on chilling water and once temp gets to 170F, throw in some more whirlpool hops and continue to chill.
9:30 – Wort to 70F, turn off whirlpool and leave to settle. Continue to run chill water for a bit to drop a few more degrees. Sanitize 6 gallon Better Bottle.
10:00 – Drain boil kettle to fermenter, aerate and pitch yeast from starter made night before. Move temp controller from brew stand to fermenting fridge. Move fermenter in to fridge, clean boil kettle and chiller. I finished up around 10:30.
The multi-tasking is not ideal and makes for a hectic evening. I would rather not brew this way but it is often the only way to squeeze in a brew. The key to being able to brew this way is the design of the system. The electric HLT with a HERMS coil (the same used for chiller) is key. It allows me to get home from work with all my water for a 5 gallon batch already heated up and ready to go. I can pump to boil kettle and heat up if I want to skip the first step with a low strike temp. The mash recirculates the entire time to control mash temp. Many systems turn a pump on and off to control the mash temp. This adds more controllers and complexity and as a cheap ass, I try to do the minimum and keep things simple. I have noticed no ill affect from recirculation the entire mash time. Wort gets very clean as a result. This is the same thing Tastey McDole does and he makes some fine beer.
I recently added a Blichmann AutoSparge that allows me to leave the brew session unattended during the sparge too. This has been a nice addition to my system. It is a simple device and meets my needs perfectly.
I almost always do a 90 minute boil, so having a large gap between hop additions frees up time too. Other than FWH, I usually don’t add any hops until close to the end of the boil so that can free up an hour or so.
I built my brewery over many years with small upgrades here and there. Here is an equipment list and some costs. I have about $700 invested in the system. Scoring a stand and some free keggles was a huge savings. Pretty much all fittings are stainless with some plastic QD’s.
-14 gallon boil kettle; purchased from St. Pat’s in Austin when they stopped selling homebrew supplies; $90
-Two keggles, found one keg in the dump while getting rid of some trash and decided it needed a good home. The other keg was given to me by a co-worker when they could not find anyone that would take it as a return. It had been in their garage keg fridge a long time.
-Brew stand was made by a friend for beer, and an old turkey fryer stand is under the mashtun
-Hurricane burner (no stand) with natural gas orifice (Williams Brewing) $36
-March 809 pump; $100
-Whirlpool immersion chiller; $100 (sale from More Beer)
-Johnson a419 temp controller; $70
-many various stainless steel ball valves, thermometers, silicone tubing and other stuff; $150ish
-ABT false bottom for keggle mashtun; $30
-Water heater insulation wrap for mashtun from Menards; $cheap
-Stainless steel electric heating element; $40
-Blichmann AutoSparge; $70
Many of these items were given to me as Christmas gifts. A ball valve here, tubing there, etc… I started building this system in 2003 so it took many years to get where it is today.
