Two Vessel Two Tier Brewing

[MrC]

After a bit of research and applying what I've learned over the past few years I decided to trial a two vessel brew setup.  It's a basic proof of concept brew with not a lot of fancy bits and pieces and is still quite manual.

Here's the recipe:

http://www.forum.realbeer.co.nz/forum/topics/1500433:Topic:8?commen...

Brew day went well, was quite relaxed and was all over in 4.5 hours.

Here's the basic setup.  Mash Lauter Tun on top with Kettle below and a pump just below the kettle.  The pump is used to transfer from the kettle to the MLT and the MLT then gravity drains back into the kettle.

 

Step 1: Heat the strike water in the kettle.  In this case I heated 15L to 77C.

 

Step 2: Turn on the pump to circulate water around the system and preheat the mash tun.

Step 3: When the temp is up to strike temp, close the valve on the MLT and continue pumping strike water into the MLT until target mash water volume is reached.

Step 4: Turn off pump, close all valves and mash in.

Step 5: Leave the mash to to sit while heating up the remaining water minus 1L per kg of grain.  In this case I heated the remaining water to 67C.  By this time the mash was 30mins in and was already fully converted.

 

Step 6: Begin full system recirculation sparge.  Open all valves and start pump.  I started with a slow flow rate to set the filter bed and then increased the rate until the recirculation rate from the pump matched that of the fully open valve on the MLT (gravity fed into the kettle).

 

Step 7: Turn on the heat in the kettle and let the temp rise up to mash out temp and continue recirculation until the gravity in the kettle equals the target OG.

 

Step 8: Turn off pump, close valve on kettle and let the MLT drain into the kettle.

 

Step 9: Add the final sparge water of 1L per kg of grain to the MLT.  This is based on the 'cold' water sparge theory where cold means not up to sparge temp.  I decided to use 1L per kg of grain in an attempt to replace the wort that is absorbed by the grain with water.  I used water straight from the hot tap which for me is around 60C.  Seemed like a good idea during the planning phase.  

 

Step 10: Drain into kettle untill desired preboil volume reached and boil as usual, etc, etc

 

That's it!  Let me know what you think and whether I can improve on anything.

 

Cheers.

 

[MrC]

Yep, I have persisted with this setup and I love it.  

I have upgraded my mash tun to be the same size as my kettle and I been experimenting with full volume recirculation after an initial 30min mash with 'normal' water:grist ratios.  I reckon it makes my brew day easier & quicker.  Efficiency does takes a hit though.  With three tier fly sparging I was getting around 80% brewhouse efficieny but with this system it's around 68-70%.  The way I see it, this process is very similar to batch sparging as far as efficiency and not having to worry about pH & run-off gravities.  The drop in efficiency is due to the grain absorption of wort once the gravities have equalised.  You'll therefore notice a bigger hit on efficiency for bigger beers due to more grain.  I've been slowly increasing my 'cold' water sparge and eliminating deadspace in my mash tun in an attempt to get the efficiency up and it seems to be working.  I've also been using the kettle to heat the wort while recirculating to control temp.  I don't think it would be suitable for stepped mashes but it certainly works for correcting & maintaining a constant mash temp.

I've been brewing 22L batches with grain volumes ranging from 4.5kg to 6.5kg. 

I'd certainly recommend it.  If nothing else, it's a great bottom two-thirds of a two tier 3 vessel system.

Oh, did I mention that the beer is great!  Some of the best beers I've made :)

[MrC]

2.2KW element is OK, it takes a little while to get from 90 to 100C but that's OK for me and it doesn't require any wiring or special circuits.

There's a good article here that you've probably already seen but here's the link just in case: http://www.byo.com/stories/issue/article/issues/266-november-2009/1...

I'll probably move toward some kind of thermostatic temp control at some stage but for now I'm focussing on what I'm brewing rather than how I'm brewing it.  Got few recipe ideas floating around in my head that need some testing.

As far as the PID goes I think it'll take a bit of playing around to get it right and it may even vary depending on batch size.  When doing a full volume recirc, my kettle temp sits about 5C higher than my mash tun.  I focus on the mash tun temp because that's where the grain & enzymes are (mostly).  Maybe the probe should be in the MT while the PID controls the kettle element?  Just a thought.

Keep us posted with your experiences.

[Stu McKinlay]

Like a miniature version of Moon Dog in Australia... they recirculate via their kettle too.

Nice bit of lateral thinking!

[Jason Riley]

Simple and effective. Love it