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We'd like to hear your lessons learnt... Planning to set up a Stout 3BBL System

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  • We'd like to hear your lessons learnt... Planning to set up a Stout 3BBL System

    For all practical purposes we have made our minds up regarding the system we are going for... The plan is to run the following:
    Custom Hot Liquor Tank - more than double the standard Stout version to allow multiple batches and running our small pilot system from the same hot water source
    Stout Insulated Mash Tun
    Stout Insulated Domed Kettle with condensation stack
    Possibly we'll get the new hop back / grant combo vessel
    The electrical, heating & control items will be manufactured locally

    What we would like to know is the lessons learnt by others to run a Stout system.

    How are your vessels configured?
    What hose configuration are you using?
    Which pumps?
    What chiller size?
    Any tips and tricks you are willing to share?

    Thanks in advance
    Schalk



    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

  • #2
    Originally posted by GallowsHillBrew View Post
    For all practical purposes we have made our minds up regarding the system we are going for... The plan is to run the following:
    Custom Hot Liquor Tank - more than double the standard Stout version to allow multiple batches and running our small pilot system from the same hot water source
    Stout Insulated Mash Tun
    Stout Insulated Domed Kettle with condensation stack
    Possibly we'll get the new hop back / grant combo vessel
    The electrical, heating & control items will be manufactured locally

    What we would like to know is the lessons learnt by others to run a Stout system.

    How are your vessels configured?
    What hose configuration are you using?
    Which pumps?
    What chiller size?
    Any tips and tricks you are willing to share?

    Thanks in advance
    Schalk



    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
    We have one that's a few years old now. It's functional. We have to use hop bags for most of our beers, and that's a pain in the butt. I would not recommend direct firing it, though it does work and I know people who have (and we did for the better part of a year).

    The old design for the flat boil kettle lid was essentially worthless, and we almost never have it on the kettle except during the initial mash-out to boil to help keep heat in. You can't possibly use it to CIP without chemicals spraying all over the brewery. I understand that design flaw has been "fixed", but we didn't get that fix, so we end up using the lid for the mash tun for CIP for both the kettle and the mash tun, but it doesn't seal especially well on either of those. The dome top design looks better, but I have no experience with it, so can't really comment directly on that.

    Tangential inlet works ok, but the electric elements interfere with the whirlpool action a little (not to mention hop bags if we have them in there), and it's really not very sturdily made. It probably should be braced to hold the weight of a valve or two and some brewery hose filled with however much wort ends up in it, but it's just kinda hanging out there on it's own. We will have a brewday disaster at some point when that thing breaks off.

    Be sure to clean the crap out of the electric elements. You absolutely do not want to leave trub or proteins or hop material on your elements. I recommend adding an oxidative cleaner (for instance, Leracept-O) to your caustic. It works wonders. Absent that, you'll need to scrub scrub scrub.

    The Hot Liquor tank had a leaky weld on it the first time we filled it with water. Stout worked with us to get that welded up by a local shop, though, and it's been fine ever since. Good call on getting a bigger HLT, though. That's one of the bigger bottlenecks on brewday if you're looking to double batch.

    I have very limited experience with their fermenters, but the ones I saw, well, let's just say I would get something else.

    Overall, it's a functional system, but just. It's basically "you get what you pay for", IMO. Our next brewhouse will definitely not be Stout, but you can make good beer on it if you're patient and willing to make compromises with your process.

    Our pump (3/4 horse I think) and (28 I think?) plate and frame chiller are from CPE systems, and are great. Highly recommend these guys. Don and those guys up there are great to work with, responsive, and super helpful. We have a second 3/4 horse pump we use mostly for pumping sparge water and for CIP that we scored on E-Bay, that we threw a VFD on and it works perfect for that.

    We have goodyear hoses and those seem to work just fine. I like handling the 1" ID ones a lot better than the 1 1/2" ID, but we couldn't get the 1 1/2" ID ones with the formed ends, which are much more sanitary, IMO, so we generally use the 1 1/2" ID on the cold side (or on anything that will not get up to pasteurization temp). There's a lot of hose wrangling on a brewday.

    Best of luck!

    Cheers,

    Dave

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    • #3
      Thanks for the feedback Dave


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      • #4
        hey 515Dave,

        I'm interested in why you use hop bags, what problems have you had? We have a 3BBL Stout system (direct fire, not electric) and just dump the hops in freely. I haven't had any issue thus far. We're just shy of a year in. I will agree that the flat kettle lid is pretty much worthless.

        Also, what did you not like about the fermenters? We have four 3BBL, with two 6BBL on the way. I've been happy with their performance. I could, however, just be simply ignorant to what I'm missing. I'm just trying to understand my system as well as I possibly can.

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        • #5
          @gallow,

          What size HLT are you guys having built?

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          • #6
            @NatchezBrew

            We are planning to have a 1000L tank built with the necessary float switches and timers to ensure the water is at the correct temperature when we want to dough in 1st thing on a brew day.
            As base we will use a Floating Dome wine fermenter vessel. (www.fratellimarchisio.com - Flat Bottom Air Sealed Variable Capacity Tank) This will be modified to have all the correct ports and insulation. These are easily available in SA and the quality is good enough for an HLT.


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            • #7
              Hi Gallows Hill,

              Please know that Stout Tanks has made a variety of design improvements since 515Dave received their system several years ago. We incorporate customer feedback and use that for ongoing product improvements.

              Regarding the tangential inlet, we've shipped over a thousand brew kettles of various sizes without a single failure of this part. That said, we'll take a look at this and see if there is something we should do going forward.

              We started offering the dome top kettle which is an improvement over the flat lid design, plus we've made design improvements on the more cost effective flat lid design. I think 515Dave's concern is that liquid can spray out of the hinge area during CIP - we've added a flap of material to help prevent that. It may also be necessary to throttle down your pump to avoid this.

              We've made some significant design changes to the jacketed fermenters as well. You can see the photos below.

              Cheers,

              John/Stout Tanks and Kettles

              Click image for larger version

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              • #8
                We've been running a 1.5bbl Mash/Boil kettle from Stout for a little over a year now. We've got a little under 200 brews on it. It's direct fired with blichmann burners running off propane cans. We run silicone tubing to a march pump for transfers. The HLT is just a 200 quart pot we bought on Amazon. It's a simple, straight forward nano brew set-up.

                Some things to note regarding the kettles we bought from Stout:

                We never use the tangential inlet on the Boil. Trub and hops get pulled in and pulverized in the pump and everything just takes longer to settle out. We just use a big spoon to spin the wort and whirlpool.

                The sight "glass" we got with the boil kettle was a plastic tube. Maybe that would work with a different burner/brew stand setup, but ours started to melt and leak on the second or third brew. I took it over to the local neon sign place and they cut me a glass tube to replace it.

                Other than that we've been pretty happy. A few dents and scratches, but otherwise they continue to function nicely.

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                • #9
                  Hi Populuxe,

                  We had a bad lot of sight glass tubing, which did shrink - as a result, we've switched to glass. If any others give you trouble, just let us know and we'll take care of it.

                  Cheers,

                  John/Stout Tanks and Kettles

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                  • #10
                    Hi John,
                    Thanks for the feedback. We will most definitely go with the domed kettle.
                    Had a look at the one recently shipped to South Africa last weekend... I am a bit skeptical about getting a good fit / seal on the kettle manway.
                    Overall the equipment looks top notch :-)


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                    • #11
                      Make sure you're getting a big enough mash tun! We bought our system through Brewmation and Stout last year, RIGHT before Stout made the design changes . I wish we had waited a few months before ordering, but we had no idea that they were about to make major improvements.

                      Anyway, our mash tun holds 120 gallons of water. I wish it was bigger, because we can only get about 300 pounds of grain in there with the water. Any more than that, and it's very hard to stir and it's close to overflowing. With about 71% efficiency (which is the most we get with the Brewmation setup), the strongest beer we can make is around 7%. That really sucks, because people are really getting into "big" beers these days. So we basically bought a mash tun that isn't big enough.

                      Also, the false bottom in the mash tun tends to let grain get in underneath, causing our RIMS system to clog. If it sealed/seated better on the bottom of the mash tun, we wouldn't have that problem. Another brewery in our area that bought basically the same system as I did had the same problem.
                      Last edited by NigeltheBold; 07-09-2014, 02:26 PM.
                      Neil Chabut
                      Eudora Brewing Co.
                      Brewery and BOP
                      Kettering, OH

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                      • #12
                        We have done all of two brews on our 2BBL setup. I haven't seen direct fire in operation, but I completely support electric on these full-feature vessels. I'm running two 5,500W elements in the HLT and BK and it's doing fine... I spec'd it with a port for 3 elements based on theoretical heat times, but don't see us using it. The HLT seems to gain about a degree a minute and the boil is more in the 1/2 hour range? I'm rocking a strong rolling boil at 95% power, tops. If (when) I boil over, it will be simple inattentiveness because it is gentle to come to boil and shuts down immediately when you cut power. Can you tell I'm pleased w/ the electric?

                        The flat (leaking) lid on the BK is only more sad now that I see they have such a nice domed solution. I'm totally stealing the idea of using the MT lid for CIP.

                        I'm using 1/2" silicone tubing w/ 3/4" triclamp barbs and two SS Chugger pumps. The silicone holds up so far and doesn't implode under suction, but that is probably because the pumps are so meager. I've put the pumps in series when chilling to boost power, but it just can't get a whirlpool going. This coupled w/ a 12' counterflow chiller (only reasonable SS one I saw) leads to painful chill times. Process and equipment improvements will follow.

                        I have the HERMS coil option and in the end am glad I do. Maybe it's just me, but my mash seemed to drop temp quickly when I recirculated alone. I can't blame the vessels because they hold the temp with water for a surprisingly long time. With the HERMS in play I can maintain temp and (gradually) ramp it up. Unfortunately the temp really only goes up when the elements are on (right below the coil). This leads to less of a "step mash" and more of a "mash curve" that I just need to dial in w/ experience.

                        In summary, I'm still figuring out my routine and I have some pump / chiller pain - but the brewhouse is great. It is nice having such professional features on a nano system. And at the end of the day, my numbers say I'm getting efficiencies in the low 90's and I'm OK with that...
                        Binghamton Brewing Co.
                        Johnson City, NY

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                        • #13
                          We'd like to hear your lessons learnt... Planning to set up a Stout 3BBL System

                          22 double batches on my 2bbl Gas Fired Stout system. Just finished a DIPA at 8.9%. I think I have room in the MT to get another .5% or so. This is at 85-86% efficiency. Only mod I have made is to add high temp exhaust manifold insulation to the bottom knock out port on the kettle. Good support from the folks at Stout. 4bbl Ferms and BT have been issue free. 3/4 hp pump from CPE and 1/2" brewers hose and I get a great whirlpool. Duda Diesel plate chiller 2 sq.m surface chills to 70 at 4 gal/min.


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                          Last edited by Brandjes; 07-10-2014, 02:03 PM.
                          Prost!
                          Eric Brandjes
                          Cole Street Brewery
                          Enumclaw, WA

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                          • #14
                            We've been using a Stouts kettle for about 2 months, ours is direct fire. We just switched away from hop bags and have been letting the hops float freely. The whirlpool works ok, but we are going to have a dam welded in because way too many hops were getting into our chiller and clogging it. Until then we are using the mash tun to filter the wort.

                            One big issue we have is hops falling into the center inlet and scorching, which is getting into some of the beer. We don't have a solution for this yet but would appreciate any feedback from anyone with a 3bbl Stouts kettle that is direct fire. Our was purchased 3 years ago then ended up in storage so it is one of the first designs.

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                            • #15
                              I had the same issue with scorching in the bottom knock out tube. I have 2 burners that sit at about 10 and 2 (knock out tube at 6) but it was still to much heat for the tube so I wrapped the tube in high temp exhaust wrap. I still get a tiny bit of scorched material at the point where the tube is welded to the bottom of the kettle because the wrap doesn't cover that area - but I haven't had any issues with it affecting whirlpool or releasing into the beer.
                              Prost!
                              Eric Brandjes
                              Cole Street Brewery
                              Enumclaw, WA

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