I made a big change to my brew rig! The stainless tank in the center is a SS Brewtech 20 gallon infusion mash tun! The highlights are that it is fully insulated (including the lid), has cupped bottom with a center bottom drain, a nanometer (which I will explain below) and a re-circulation port which is unfortunately on the wrong side for my system. I also fine tuned my pump and hose layout to make the whole thing easier to manage.
Why the new mash tun?
- The volume of the 10 gallon cooler was not big enough to make 10 gallon batches of higher gravity beers.
- Although I have been assured that using a plastic mash tun is safe, I still feel better having a fully stainless system.
- It will lend itself to doing more no-sparge brewing due to it's volume.
- The bottom drain design eliminates wort loss below the false bottom.
- The nanometer is a great tool to help prevent a stuck sparge or re-circulation.
The only two drawbacks to this mash tun for me are emptying/cleaning and the location of the re-circulation port. For emptying/cleaning, my plan is to clean it in place (CIP) the same way that I clean the other kettles. I am hoping that I can scoop out all the grain and by swirling rinse water to suspend the remaining grain, then pump it into the sink. At this point I would just use my DIY CIP head to do the same cleaning I do on the other kettles. (More to come on the DIY CIP head in a later post.)
The other change was to eliminate the elaborate pump priming hardware that I originally installed. This consisted of a T connector coming out of the pump with one side going to the output destination and the other side to a valve and hose allowing me to eliminate back pressure when priming. Although this worked well, it caused big headaches for cleaning. As the PBW circulated through the pump and hose half the output T and the valve were not being exposed, which caused sediment to build up. My solution was simply to eliminate the T and disconnect the output hose from it's destination connector when priming which eliminates any back pressure. I tested this on my last brew and it worked very well and made cleaning much easier.