First electric brew - need feed back

[KB]

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Saturday, June 3, 2017 was my first electric brew. Looking for feedback, thoughts and input.

To begin I followed the "Brew Day Step-By-Step" instructions. Based on the experience of others, reading thru the forum posts, I adjusted my brewhouse efficiency to 80%. Recalculated the recipe based on 80%, then recalculated the amount of water needed based on the new grain amount.

In summary. Long brew day. Began 8:47AM. Everything done and clean 8:50 PM. 12 hours and 3 minutes.

Switching the hoses are a real pain. Also, I feel the hop stopper, as others have written, is the weak link. Why? Ran the pump as suggested in the "Brew Day Step-By-Step" instructions, but the hop stopper got clogged and I only had 10.5 gallons collected. Time to get the strainer bag with cleaned and sanitized bucket. Dump the remaining wort in the boil kettle, due to the clogged hop stopper, thru the strainer bag into the plastic bucket. This killed me on time!

Step summary.

Step 1 Mill grains: Did the prior day using recommended gap of 0.045". I didn't note the begin and ends times, but grain was quickly milled as I used a hand drill to crank the mill. Only problem: the drill was either to too slow to crank or too fast. I was unable to find the drill "sweet spot" where the mill was cranking at a slower drill rate.

Step 2 Fill HLT with water: 24 minutes. Had a problem with a female QD at the HLT in valve. QD leaking. Not the plumbing or the valve, the QD itself. QD just would not tightly connect to the male QD on the valve. Had to run the faucet water at a lower rate to prevent/minimize leaking.

Step 3 Heat strike water: 51 minutes to reach 149F.

Step 4 Transfer strike water to MLT: 10 minutes.

Step 5 Mash: 1 hour 43 minutes. Unfortunately, I missed the part in the instructions about running the mash water for 5 to 10 minutes to get temp back up to 149F. Lost time as after adding the grain to the MLT the temp is 138F. Bumped up the HLT temp a bit and had to wait for the MLT to achieve 149F. Only considered the 90 mash beginning when the MLT was at 149F.

Step 6 Mashout: 54 minutes. MLT is stuck at 167F. HLT is 168F. Bump up HLT a bit in an attempt to get MLT to 168F.

Step 7 Sparge: 2 hours and 6 minutes. Thought I was following the instructions "Both pumps are kept mostly closed during the 60-90 minute sparge to maximize sugar extraction", but clearly I took way too long to sparge. Too bad valves don't have a gauge so I'd know to open the valve a bit more next brew. However, I took a photo to help me remember the valve setting that took to long to sparge.

Step 8 Boil: 2 hours and 20 minutes. Turn on boil element 3:30PM. Boil begins at 4:12 PM. Begin 90 minute boil at 4:20PM as I waited for the protein break to subside. When I turned the boil PID to 80% the element light was constantly going on and then off. As soon as it went off the light came back on. Is this expected? Same happened when I set the PID to 75%. Yes, the PID was in manual mode. If this is behavior is not expected what should I check?

See note about hop stopper problems at the beginning of this post. Next time I will use the Utah Biodiesel hop filter and hope for better results.

Step 9 Chill: 1 hour and 33 minutes. First time I'm using a CFC and honestly I don't trust the wort coming out is cool enough. My plan is to use tap water to get the wort under 100F and then use recycling ice cold water (ice and water in the HLT) while the wort is recycling in the MLT. The recycling ice cold water does a nice job of dropping the wort temp out of the CFC to 58F. Why 1 hour and 33 minutes? Took time to connect/move hoses, etc. Once again, moving hoses as mentioned at the beginning of this post is a time killer/finger burner/spill mess.

Get wort sample for hydro reading, give wort 2 minutes of oxygen, pitch yeast, put lager into beverage center, leave ale on brewery floor (brewery temp is 64F), clean oxygen stone, wipe up spills, clean out CFC, clean kettles, clean pumps, etc.

Dead tired after a long day.

Based on readings taken during the session, Beersmith calculates my brewhouse efficiency 80.2%, mash efficiency 82.3%

Appreciate any feedback.

Also, hope I'm not having a boil element or boil PID problem.

[kal]

[kal]

[KB]

Sorry, having coffee on Sunday morning and trying to wake up.

Switching the hoses are a real pain due to time/hot QDs/spills, etc.

[kal]

Before disconnecting a QD, make sure to close the ball valves at least before and after where you're disconnecting. You'll only have a few drips that way. I usually use a small bowl to catch those drips.

Kal

[kal]

Before disconnecting a QD, make sure to close the ball valves at least before and after where you're disconnecting. You'll only have a few drips that way. I usually use a small bowl to catch those drips.

Kal

[wscottcross]

[T-Bone]

Hi Kraig,

Regarding issue with Step 2 - QD, i had the same issue with one of mine, it turned out that the recess on the male section was slightly wider than the others. This means the steel balls that spring into the recess don't fit tightly causing a good seal. If you have some vernier callipers, check that.

With Sparging. I am certainly no expert, having only done my first brew yesterday as well. However i found that if watch the flow into the BK on the sight glass, and time it over a few litres using a stop watch, you can close off that valve pretty accurately to get your sparge time. Then close off the water pump value until the level of the MTL sight glass isn't moving. i.e. same into MLT as out. Doing this worked perfectly for me. I hit 65 minutes when i was aiming for 60.

[KB]

Thanks for all the feedback. Integrating suggestions into next brew session.