Mashing, sparging, lautering, oh my!

After going over the basics, it's time to dive into how we go about using our kettles to make delicious beer. By now, you know that our goal is to extract the fermentable sugars from grains and create clear WORT that the yeast will enjoy eating. 

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equipment we use:

1. Recipe, pens/pencils, & ingredients (water, hops, grain, water additives)
2. pH meter
3. Brew Paddle (ours is stainless steel)
4. 3 propane burners
5. 3 Brew pots (we have two 50 gallon Brew Built pots and one 50 gallon SS Brewtech pot)
6. False bottom for the Mash Tun
7. RIMS Tube w/ sight glass
8. 2 Chugger pumps 
9. An assortment of silicone hoses with Quick Disconnect Fittings
10. Whirlpool
11. Hop bags (we have tried a variety of options, but we prefer using hop bags)
12. Refractometer
13. Brewing gloves (heat resistant and help when moving hoses with hot liquid)
14. Small pitchers/buckets to hold the silicone hoses, hot liquid, etc. 

The Process: 

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In the picture above, you can see our brew cart setup. Traditionally, the three vessels are setup from left to right as the hot liquor tank (HLT), mash tun (MT), and boil kettle (BK). However, we setup our cart in a different order to accommodate the rolling cart that holds our RIMS tube. Our HLT is actually setup in the middle of our cart. You can see that we have two carts for pumps. We attached our pumps to furniture dollies purchased at Harbor Freight for under $20. This is a very inexpensive way to make your carts more mobile. If you look closely, you'll see that our pumps have outdoor faucet attachments. Those faucets allow us to purge the silicone tubing of air bubbles so that the hot liquid can easily flow through the pump. Also, if we get a stuck mash, we can open the faucet and have any small particles of grain dump out before hitting the pump and clogging it. This system has worked out well for us. Also, the reddish orange (they were once bright red) mats on the wood cart are BBQ mats that we repurposed to stop hot liquid from getting into the wood. The mats have worked out well and keep the cart from becoming sticky from spilled hot wort. In the future, we hope to build a stainless steel cart that will have pumps in a permanent location; however, we don't see the need to spend the money on that as this cart is working well for us. 

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When we brew, there are several steps that we take before we even begin to heat up water. The night before we brew (or several days before), we "make" water by filtering our water through our reverse osmosis system. We also print out our recipe and reread it to make sure we have all ingredients on hand--we started doing this because we have brewed a few times and realized, oops! we forgot the yeast! Currently, we are dialing in our larger system, and we decided to stop making yeast starters and focus on yeast starters and harvesting yeast once we feel more comfortable in the rest of our setup. So, for now, we are using dried yeast which has been working out fine so far. 

In the morning, Mike and I divide up the brewing tasks. Mike sets up the cart and RIMS tube while I measure out the water additives and hops needed to brew. When it comes to the actual brewing, I focus on the mash pH, the Brix & gravity readings, the timing of the mash, watching the recirculation & boil, and hop additions. Mike focuses on setting up the silicone tubing and pumps, prepping the wort chillers and fermenters, and all things related to cleaning and sanitizing. Having separate duties while brewing has created a more efficient brew day that gives us each a clear purpose/direction for the day and keeps us from running into each other.  We each take part in the cleaning after brewing with me focusing on cleaning the kettles while Mike focuses on cleaning the pumps, RIMS tube, and hoses. 

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The video above shows the transfer of water heated to strike temperature in the HLT and pumped to the MT. You can see the water come up from the bottom of the MT and through the false bottom. Once the water is completely transferred over, we recheck the temperature of the water and once it reaches the temp required, we mash in our grains. Unfortunately, we don't currently have a video of us mashing in. Basically, Mike starts slowly adding grains to the water while I stir the water with a brew paddle to prevent the formation of dough balls. The strike temperature is always slightly higher than the mash temperature as adding the grains to the water will cool the temperature. The false bottom keeps the grains off the bottom of the MT and helps to prevent a stuck mash (i.e., the grains preventing the liquid from leaving the MT). 

After we mash in the grain and break up any dough balls, we begin to recirculate the liquid in the MT. A ball valve on the bottom of the MT is opened up and the liquid flows to the pump and through our RIMS tube. The rims tube has a heating element that keeps the liquid at a set temperature and then pumps the liquid through a sight glass to the sparge arm. This process of moving the liquid from the bottom of the kettle and back to the top makes the wort crystal clear and cleans out any leftover debris from the grain. This process continues at a set temperature until the desired amount of Brix is reached (i.e., the desired amount of sugar is extracted from the grain). Typically, this takes 60-75 minutes, depending on the grains used and style of beer created. After 10 minutes, we take a pH of the mash to determine if we need to make any adjustments to the mash. 

In the videos above, the left video shows the recirculating mash process; however, the video uses water to demonstrate the process. The video on the right shows how the sparge arm works. We leave the valve on open to start the recirculating process and then lower the amount of liquid coming out of the sparge arm to more of a trickle. 

After we finish the recirculating mash process, we begin to sparge or rinse the grains and transfer the liquid wort over to the BK. First, we reheat water in our HLT and then pump the water through the RIMS tube and sparge arm. This water rinses the grain bed. As the water trickles over the grain bed, the MT is opened and the liquid flows into a second pump that pumps the liquid into the BK. The trick is to keep an inch or two of liquid above the grain bed through the process. You continue to rinse the grain bed until the required amount of liquid is in the BK. 

The video above shows the sparging process. Once the liquid is transferred into the BK, another Brix reading with the refractometer is taken along with another pH reading. The liquid wort is then brought to a rolling boil. At this point, it is critical to watch the BK as a hot break happens where proteins and polyphenols coagulate and cause a boil over. To prevent the dreaded boil over, you can turn down the flame on the burner or spray water on the foamy top of the boil to cause the proteins to coagulate and fall back into the pot. 

A typical brew day consists of a 60-90 minute boil depending on your recipe and type of beer being brewed. During the boil process, hops are added at various intervals to add flavor to the wort. In the last 15 minutes of the boil, we typically add either Whirloc or Irish Moss to the kettle to help clear out the wort from any debris. Once the boil ends, we turn off the flame and begin a 10 minute whirlpool followed by a 10 minute rest. During this time, the liquid in the BK is pumped out of the kettle and through the whirlpool to force the liquid to move in a circular pattern. The circular motion of the whirlpool causes the debris from the hops and grain to congregate in the center of the BK and remain in the pot while clear wort is transferred to the fermenter.

The picture on the left shows the boil. You can see the foam towards the left and the foam on the right that has dissipated. This is from the hot break. In the right picture , you can see the tube used for the whirlpool and the leftover sediment left in the BK after racking over to the fermenter. 

And this concludes our hot side brewing process. Next week, we'll show you our cold side process. 

Cheers! 
​2JBC