Kaiser
Well-Known Member
Well, I also went to the drawing board to come up with a concept for my future brewery replacement. I don't really have the funds yet, but I have the space in the basement and just like the idea to think about thinks like this. The design is heavily influenced by what I see on a German home brewing board. The following design aspects were important for me:
- stirred mash: I expect a better grain utilization and temperature distribution than one can get with a RMS/HERMS system. The former seems important when working will less modified malts.
- electric heating: this is more of a safety issue since I don't want to worry about proper venting and I'm also feeling more confidant working with electricity. The additional cost should be marginal if I insulate the vessels well.
- A boil kettle with a center heating element for boiling. The heat application in the center will cause an even circulation of the wort just like in commercial systems
- A vented hood for the boil kettle since the unit is operated indoors
- A capacity of 10 or 20 gal max. I'm not quite decided on the capacity that I need. I certainly want to start making 10 gal or even bigger batches, but like the 5gal size for testing recipes. The latter is difficult on a 20gal system.
Here is a crude drawing:
The MLT is on the far left so I could have a chute for the milled grains from the garage. The idea is to minimize the bacteria laden grain dust in the actual brew house. But this is only a nice to have. A motor with gear drives a stirrer that keeps the mash in motion during mashing. The mash is heated with an electrical heating element below the MLT. The stirrer makes it difficult to get the heating element into the mash. It also simplifies cleaning. Gear and motor are mounted on the lid, which is fixed to the pot with a few bolts (bolts need to be welded to the pot). A copper manifold or braided SS hose is used a manifold for lautering. A false bottom would get in the way of the stirrer and I'm fine with just batch sparging. The good thing is, that the MLT can also be used as cooker for decoction mashing since it can be heated to a boil and can be stirred continuously. I simply have to remove the part of the mash that I don't want to decoct.
A single pump can be used to recirculate, move the wort to the boil kettle, move sparge water into the MLT, recirculate the post boil wort for chilling and more the wort to the fermenter.
The boil kettle has 2 separate heating elements. The inner and outer will be used to heat the wort to boiling and the inner will be used to boil the wort. The even circulation of the wort will make for a more efficient boil while keeping the thermal loading on the wort minimal. I'll have to calculate the anticipated W/m^2 to see if I have to worry about scorching.
I plan to do the chilling of the wort either with an immersion chiller while recirculating the wort or with a CFC placed in the wort's path while recirculating. This will allow me to leave hot and most of the cold break in the boil kettle and it also gets me out of the DMS production zone pretty fast.
I'll post updates once I have them. But one of the early exercises would be coming up with a parts list, an estimate and where to get various parts.
Kai
- stirred mash: I expect a better grain utilization and temperature distribution than one can get with a RMS/HERMS system. The former seems important when working will less modified malts.
- electric heating: this is more of a safety issue since I don't want to worry about proper venting and I'm also feeling more confidant working with electricity. The additional cost should be marginal if I insulate the vessels well.
- A boil kettle with a center heating element for boiling. The heat application in the center will cause an even circulation of the wort just like in commercial systems
- A vented hood for the boil kettle since the unit is operated indoors
- A capacity of 10 or 20 gal max. I'm not quite decided on the capacity that I need. I certainly want to start making 10 gal or even bigger batches, but like the 5gal size for testing recipes. The latter is difficult on a 20gal system.
Here is a crude drawing:
The MLT is on the far left so I could have a chute for the milled grains from the garage. The idea is to minimize the bacteria laden grain dust in the actual brew house. But this is only a nice to have. A motor with gear drives a stirrer that keeps the mash in motion during mashing. The mash is heated with an electrical heating element below the MLT. The stirrer makes it difficult to get the heating element into the mash. It also simplifies cleaning. Gear and motor are mounted on the lid, which is fixed to the pot with a few bolts (bolts need to be welded to the pot). A copper manifold or braided SS hose is used a manifold for lautering. A false bottom would get in the way of the stirrer and I'm fine with just batch sparging. The good thing is, that the MLT can also be used as cooker for decoction mashing since it can be heated to a boil and can be stirred continuously. I simply have to remove the part of the mash that I don't want to decoct.
A single pump can be used to recirculate, move the wort to the boil kettle, move sparge water into the MLT, recirculate the post boil wort for chilling and more the wort to the fermenter.
The boil kettle has 2 separate heating elements. The inner and outer will be used to heat the wort to boiling and the inner will be used to boil the wort. The even circulation of the wort will make for a more efficient boil while keeping the thermal loading on the wort minimal. I'll have to calculate the anticipated W/m^2 to see if I have to worry about scorching.
I plan to do the chilling of the wort either with an immersion chiller while recirculating the wort or with a CFC placed in the wort's path while recirculating. This will allow me to leave hot and most of the cold break in the boil kettle and it also gets me out of the DMS production zone pretty fast.
I'll post updates once I have them. But one of the early exercises would be coming up with a parts list, an estimate and where to get various parts.
Kai