Just got a Grainfather single vessel recirculating system that uses a small controller to maintain the mash temperature and recirculating the water to do continuous sparge.
Decided to do a simple 23L batch size SMASH ale with Amarillo, using FirstWort hopping added to the first runnings (drain from the mash before sparging)
Recipe, 23L batch, 17l Mash@67C, 15l batch sparge @76C
5kg Marris Otter
25g Amarillo (8.5%) firstwort addition with the first drain of mash,
30mins, 20g Amarillo,
15min 25g Amarillo & Whirfloc.
No flame out additions.
Unboxing had the feeling of an iPhone, everything well packed, slipped into each other with reusable plasti-card packer for the cooler inside to the boiler to save scrapping.
Grainfather (GF) mash/sparge calculations a little hard to get right in BeerSmith (BS) but managed close enough to feel comfortable about hop utilization etc. Overroad the BS mash/sparge volumes with those from GF but they were within 0.5l anyways,
Cold to mash (8degC -> 67 degC) in about 30 mins sitting in my garage with ambient air around 12/13 degC that works for me :-).
Lifted up to let the first running drain. You can see below the setup and how the mash recirculates, the spoon is a sample about about 30mins, nice and clear !!
Now it was time to get hoppy! Smash beers can be a bit simple in the mouth so decided to try first wort hopping, this seems so give some different bitterness profile compared to a straight 60min addition. The hops (25g Amarillo) were added to the boiler as the maltpipe with the grains in dripped through, got 12.5L from 17L strike volume so grain absorption was spot on.
By the way it took 10 mins to get to a rolling boil from end of sparge, but I had the element on full during the sparger so it was creeping up all the time. The sparge was aimed as 15L at 76degC, I reckon I used 16L but having left the maltpipe dripping in a bucket , I will leave it to drain longer next time and think i would not be far from the target 28L pre-boil.
The OG from the first runnings (12,5l) was 1.069 and from the 28l pre-boil was 1.040. All the SG readings here were converted Brix.
After boil I collected 22l (could have got another 1l but the hop filter was stuck) and the OG in a hydrometer was 1.052 compared to 1.044( converted 11brix), so something in my refractometer is off, but then £12 on ebay what do you expect.
So it looks like 22l at 1.052 from a 5kg grain bill, giving 76%, but if I had let it drip to the 23l would be closer to 80%, very happy for a first run:-)
The cooler worked fantastically apart from the idiot driving it. Recirc into the boiler for 5 mins to sterilize, then on with the cold tap (9degC) and into the fermenter. It ran out at 16degC immediately!! But then the wort flow slowed……had read about the saftey value (ball/spring) blocking, so off with the pump and removed it, back on with the pump, but unfortunately I had turned the cold flow off, did not notice for a few mins.
Net-net, 21l into the fermenter at 31degC rather than the 16degC it would have been, but had spotted it so into a bucket of cold water and sealed it untile it dropped, then pitched rehydrated US05.
After a few years of HWMBO enduring the hobby, off it goes to bed for a week or so in the visitors room shower, covered up to keep the light off of it.
Normally I ferment in a temperature controlled fridge but the controller has gone bang and I am heading from sunny (not) Scotland to Austin TX tomorrow so that fix will need to wait.
logbrewblog 