pycho brewing equipment 2 MT 2 Kettle system to make 4bbl equipment question

[jcmccoy]

this is the link to the system I am asking about

http://www.psychobrewllc.com/nano-brewing-systems/psycho-system-17.html

First anyone use one of these or a system like it? How do you manage double brewing?

To double brew I would need another pot for a HLT correct or am I missing something?

To sparge I just attach a sparge arm and pump the water from the HLT?

[AnthonyB]

A lot of folks using these systems in a startup sort of configuration end up going with a tankless water heater instead of a HLT. If you search the forums for tankless, that issue has been talked about a lot... but you could also just add a separate HLT.

[Junkyard]

you can also use a food grade plastic barrel or other water storage vessel and pump your sparge water into a plastic vessel to wait until you have to sparge. then pump your sparge water on top of your mash when sparging.

[beejay]

Definitely get a on demand hot water heater if you go this route. The last thing you want to do is waster time heating water in what is already a fairly laborious and lengthy brew cycle. We used one of these for about a year and it worked perfectly to get us started.

You use the on demand hot water heater to fill the first mash tun, which takes roughly 15 minutes with a Rinnai 98i heater. You can have it fill faster if you use multiple units hooked inline together too, but for the kettles you're looking at one unit is fine. One the tun is filled, start filling the second kettle as you mash in the first. Keeping the two separated by 15 minutes means by the end of the process your first kettle should be cooled out and in the fermentor by time the second is done whirlpooling. We also timed it out so we would start a third and forth mash that would be ready to lauter right as the first kettle was emptied and cleaned. We were able to fill full 7 bbl tanks up each day this way. It was a lot of work, but we got good at it eventually bringing a full brew day down to 9 hours with set up and cleanup.

[jcmccoy]

Definitely get a on demand hot water heater if you go this route. The last thing you want to do is waster time heating water in what is already a fairly laborious and lengthy brew cycle. We used one of these for about a year and it worked perfectly to get us started.

You use the on demand hot water heater to fill the first mash tun, which takes roughly 15 minutes with a Rinnai 98i heater. You can have it fill faster if you use multiple units hooked inline together too, but for the kettles you're looking at one unit is fine. One the tun is filled, start filling the second kettle as you mash in the first. Keeping the two separated by 15 minutes means by the end of the process your first kettle should be cooled out and in the fermentor by time the second is done whirlpooling. We also timed it out so we would start a third and forth mash that would be ready to lauter right as the first kettle was emptied and cleaned. We were able to fill full 7 bbl tanks up each day this way. It was a lot of work, but we got good at it eventually bringing a full brew day down to 9 hours with set up and cleanup.

Thanks for the reply

How did you remove the grain and clean the kettles and mash tuns? How do you sparge the 2 mashes at once? What kind of mash efficiency would you find with your avrage brew at 14 plato? and at what water to grain ratio?

Also, I live in the south side of Chicago I would love to come check out your brewery.

[SMiller]

Thanks for the reply

How did you remove the grain and clean the kettles and mash tuns?

Also, I live in the south side of Chicago I would love to come check out your brewery.

Stand on a ladder or short scaffolding with a gallon pitcher and start scooping/scrubbing.

I bought this same system but never ended up using it before getting a 7bbl system. It's still sitting at my brewery unused if you want to check it out. We sold it months ago but are storing it for the current owner. The new owners plans changed and they are now selling it if you're interested.

[beejay]

Thanks for the reply

How did you remove the grain and clean the kettles and mash tuns? How do you sparge the 2 mashes at once? What kind of mash efficiency would you find with your avrage brew at 14 plato? and at what water to grain ratio?

Also, I live in the south side of Chicago I would love to come check out your brewery.

As the previous poster said, we had some short painters scaffolding and we scooped it out by hand. Just split the water line coming from the hot water heater to sparge two at once. Never brewed anything close to 14 plato, most of our stuff was about twice that. Ended up hitting 75-80% efficiency with the tuns maxed out on grain at 175 lbs at a ration of 1qt/lb. I'm sure on standard gravity stuff you could do a little better, maybe 85% or so.

That system is long gone at this point. It lives in Indiana at 18th st brewing now. We moved on to a 10bbl system at this point.

[SMiller]

This picture shows what beejay was referring to for sparging from the on demand heater. You can also see our sweet ghetto trench drains.

https://www.facebook.com/SlapShotBrewing/photos/pb.148251235297240.-2207520000.1393976424./421532147969146/?type=3&theater

[jcmccoy]

more questions

More questions about brewing on this system.

When going from Mash tun to kettle did you fill the kettle from the bottom or whirlpool arm?

Going to the heat exchange did you pump into it or after?

How did you deal with all the hop trub? How well did a whirlpool work? Hop back?

Thanks for any help!

[martyl]

Using a Psycho Brew System

I have not used this system but have the first 1 bbl PsychoBrew 1BBL system and a couple of things That we did

1. Inline water heater is the way to go
2. Didn't have a whirlpool port so we built a arm to go down the inside of the kettle with a TC at the top of the kettle and an elbow down 2/3 of the way and used it to fill from mash tun and also then to whirl pool. The arm was a copper pipe clamped in place on the side of the kettle with a quick squeeze clamp at the top edge of the kettle.
3. Clean of mash tun out - 55 gallon shop vac - local farmer picked up the barrels - we filled them about half full. Had several on hand to switch top. Found new 55 gallon shop vac top on ebay for under $200. switched out vac hose for a smooth bore hose with a quick coupler about $75. .
4. Quick scrub out and mash in next batch.

The guys at Psychobrew are great to work with. Now using for pilot system. brewing on a 10bbl. glad to answer any specific questions,

[beejay]

More questions about brewing on this system.

When going from Mash tun to kettle did you fill the kettle from the bottom or whirlpool arm?

Going to the heat exchange did you pump into it or after?

How did you deal with all the hop trub? How well did a whirlpool work? Hop back?

Thanks for any help!

We generally filled through the whirlpool arm, but I't doesn't really matter. I just liked having a little longer to monitor the flow rate as I liked to start the transfer using gravity, then switch on the pump once it slowed down or the boil kettle level was getting closer to the mash volume.

Pump before the heat exchanger otherwise you will have a hard time priming the pump and likely use a lot of wort in the process. If you have a self priming pump then I suppose it doesnt matter. Also I suggest getting a real brewers pump with VFD for actual transfers. You'll likely need it for cleaning your fermentors (if they are commercial sized) anyway. The small pumps that come with the system are fine for moving wort from mash to boil, but they'd be very slow for knock out.

For whirlpooling I found the whirlpool inlet to be totally worthless. By simply stirring vigorously for 30 seconds with a paddle you get a perfectly good whirlpool.

We wer able to use up to 6 pounds of hops per boil kettle on the high side. With this amount there was a significant trub pile and a lot made it to the fermentor and occasionally stuck up the heat exchanger. 3-4 pounds is relatively safe. We never used a hop back with ours so cant comment there.

[jcmccoy]

Definitely get a on demand hot water heater if you go this route. The last thing you want to do is waster time heating water in what is already a fairly laborious and lengthy brew cycle. We used one of these for about a year and it worked perfectly to get us started.

You use the on demand hot water heater to fill the first mash tun, which takes roughly 15 minutes with a Rinnai 98i heater. You can have it fill faster if you use multiple units hooked inline together too, but for the kettles you're looking at one unit is fine. One the tun is filled, start filling the second kettle as you mash in the first. Keeping the two separated by 15 minutes means by the end of the process your first kettle should be cooled out and in the fermentor by time the second is done whirlpooling. We also timed it out so we would start a third and forth mash that would be ready to lauter right as the first kettle was emptied and cleaned. We were able to fill full 7 bbl tanks up each day this way. It was a lot of work, but we got good at it eventually bringing a full brew day down to 9 hours with set up and cleanup.

What size batches would you brew to fit in the 7 bbl fermenter? Or how much wort would you start with in the kettles?

Also how and when did you pitch your yeast brewing like this?