Does anyone brew on Stout tanks electric brewing system?

[Greenbushguy]

Transfer line sani

Getting ready to fire up our 7bbl electric, and have a couple process questions...

I assume everyone's MT manway is as low as ours? What do you all use for spent grain containers that will fit under that manway?

When transferring to fermenter, what is your procedure for sanitizing the line? I previously brewed on a system with no HLT, so we would pump the HL from the kettle to the fermenter before lauterng over, sanitizing the line and fermenter in the process.

Thanks for any help!

Nathan

Sanitize your fermenter right before you start brewing. Leave the sanitizer in the vessel. In our case it's "Reflex". When you are done cycling it, charge the fermenter up with CO2 or sterile compressed air. Connect your transfer line. Before you knock out, back flush with the sanitizer back through transfer lines and yeast pitching lines. Once done, seal it up cast out the wort towards the fermenter but rinse the lines out with wort first before sending it into the fermenter. We attach our transfer line to our ferms with a T fitting with a sample valve off one side to purge the line of any residual sani before sending it into the fermenter. This method works great for us and we lose a negligible amount of wort in the process.

[Shorthillsbrew]

Plumbing 3 bbl Stout tanks

Great Info and feedback, I have put down a deposit on the 3 bbl electric system (expected delivery Nov) service has been great so far, a little frustrated on not being given any schematics on operation or lay-out/plumbing (required for licensing here) seems they give you the freedom to decide but they manufacture the system with a method in mind.

Right now I am contemplating not having any of the valves and hoses included and I'll do plumbing based on my design once the system arrives, with that thought in mind has anyone tried plumping the 3 bbl system with additional valves and hoses to remove the need to move hoses round while brewing? I've been advised if I do the plumbing this way it creates a greater volume loss, but I’m not picturing that much a difference if any.


any feedback is appreciated

[GallowsHillBrew]

We are busy with the planning for a 4-5BBL system. At the moment I am still contemplating to run the loose hoses at the start and switching to hard plumbed later, but this will probably be a more expensive exercise.

Planning for the hard plumbed setup will be along the lines of the attached pictures. Pump inlets and outlets are switched by using U shaped pipes to change the routing.
I am going to design the plates to have enough positions to upgrade the system from a normal HLT, MLT, Wort grant + Kettle setup to a 5 vessel system consisting of a HLT, Mash Tun, Lauter Tun, Wort Grant + twin kettles.
This will allow multiple batches in a much shorter time frame.

I think one of the basic mistakes people make is to look at brewhouse volume in a single charge alone, where they should actually look at cycling time more seriously.





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[Crosley]

I have a Stout 3bbl system and it's all hoses. I have the hoses setup so that the only hose that I need to change is from vorlauf to kettle. This is a huge saver for me on brew days. I think that on this size system fully hard piped may be overkill, when it can be done pretty easy and cheap with just hoses.

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[Shorthillsbrew]

@crosley did you order the whole system from stout tanks with the brewmation controls, if so how many hoses and valves did you have to add to their turnkey setup to get your current configuration?

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[Crosley]

I have 2 chugger pumps, a 1/2 keg as a wort grant, 3 tees, 1 elbow, 1 added valve, and 3/4" tubing (2', 6', 6", 4'). I can recirc in the hlt, transfer to mt, mt to grant back to mt for vorlauf, and grant to kettle with only changing 1 hose.


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[Shorthillsbrew]

Thanks for the info. Makes the process perfectly clear.

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[mmmatt]

Getting ready to fire up our 7bbl electric, and have a couple process questions...

I assume everyone's MT manway is as low as ours? What do you all use for spent grain containers that will fit under that manway?

When transferring to fermenter, what is your procedure for sanitizing the line? I previously brewed on a system with no HLT, so we would pump the HL from the kettle to the fermenter before lauterng over, sanitizing the line and fermenter in the process.

Thanks for any help!

Nathan

I use a small, white (10-20 gal?) Brute foodsafe garbage can with trash compactor bags. It fits right up to the edge. Also a rolling mechanics stool from Harbor Freight. The trash compactor bags are super tough and can be tied up and tossed in the dumpster or composter's pickup truck. One of those filled with wet grain is fairly comfortable to carry if you aren't too big a Sally. Cary in the can and then dump out the tied bag.