10 Gallon batches

OK, let me try and explain further, Mike. The hose that leads from your kettle via your kettle ball valve to your CFC or Plate Chiller (and back)...when does that get sanitized using your regimen?

 

I really like premierpro approach and I might do the same thing in the future but it's not half the work for each beer.
For me the work and limitation are :
- making two starters CSC (cleaning sensitizing and cleaning at the end)
- CSC two fermenters
- having the same mash and hop boil profile
- strains will finish apart from each other and might bee bottled separately.

I can assume it's grate strategy form extract or partial brewer, but I kinda like it.

 

I drilled a hole near the top of the kettle. When I drain from the ball valve, it goes through the pump, through the plate chiller and into the port at the top of the kettle. I run it for the last 10-15 minutes of the boil and all of that equipment is sanitized. Mike probably does something similar.

 

When I pump the boiling wort through it.
But I'm still confused by your perceived need to sanitize the hoses after you're done moving the wort. Unless you seal them in a germ-free environment between batches, you're wasting your time.

 

I realize everything is going to get sanitized when recircing on subsequent batches, but it seems to me that a good 200*F flush for cleaning purposes at least for 15 min after each batch will prevent the buildup of unwanted stuff in some of the low flow or "crud trap" areas I mentioned. Might be a little overkill...but I sleep better

 

I flush out the recirc setup with a 5 gallon bucket of water and another 5 gallon bucket of starsan. I always have this left over at the end of brewday anyway.

By the way, for those with plate chillers, how in the hell is their still traces of wort in there after backflushing, recirculating 5 gallons of clean water, then 5 gallons of clean starsan?! Blows my freaking mind...

 

Peace of mind is a good thing, and I won't argue with that. A flush is fine for cleaning, but not for sanitation. Sanitizing and cleaning are two different things. Sanitizing your equipment after a brew session is meaningless. The hoses may, indeed, be bug free after you're done, but they likely won't be at the start of your next brew session unless you have some special sanitary storage technique.

 

Lets see if I can help you.
"Making two Starters" Make one starter and pitch the other with dry yeast.
"Having the same mash and hop boil profile." This is the best way toexperiment with different yeast strains.
" Strains will finish apart from each other and might need to be bottled seperately." I do not bottle or keg any beer befor three weeks of sitting on the yeast so there is never an issue with not being finished.

 

How may ferma

Thanks for the help
- Never again dry yeast
- No extracts in my house (for starter only)
- Brewing thrice a month
- learn new stuff every day.

 

Only issue I've had since going to 10 gal batches is that I am less willing to experiment and try to brew styles that I may not want to drink 10 gals. of. I don't mind as I like to make/drink mostly IPA's anyway with an occasional baltic porter or barleywine - for other styles, I can just buy the few bottles/cases I am going to end up drinking. With IPA's I can dryhop each half differently - and with hops in a keg the flavor seems to change almost daily, so no fear of having to drink 10 gals. of the same beer - which I have no problem with anyway when its good beer that I enjoy. I have split batches and used different yeasts, but using one wort base is usually a compromise for at least one of the styles.

 

Ball valves are not a must with 10 gal. batches. I have been racking beer out of the kettle and into two carboys for almost 70 batches now. Now I just sanitize two racking canes/hoses and two carboys instead of one. Still using an immersion chiller too, so pumps and plate/CFC are not necessary either. Going to 10 gal batches doesn't require more specialized equipment than a 5 gal. batch unless you choose it to, just takes a little thought of how you are going to move mash and post brew liquid.

 

Agree, but sanitation is not possible if some of the hard to reach surfaces are not clean to begin with. My brew buddy just had an infected batch and spent a lot of time cleaning/sanitizing. I gave him some of these: http://www.williamsbrewing.com/TM-DESANAMAX-P3368C58.aspx but have not had to use them myself (yet)...he said he was amazed at the crap inside his system.
Cheers

 

You are probably the only guy with that setup ...never say "must/never"...my bad
I'd rather deal with ball valves and pumps than siphons Cheers

 

We're talking about two different things. It's the cleaning, not the sanitizing, that is important after a brew session. No amount of post-brew sanitizing will eliminate crap in the lines - it's the cleaning that does that. I clean the hell out of my equipment after I use it, so there's no crap left. Sanitizing doesn't happen until I'm ready to use it.

 

That's the point...at least for me...it takes MUCH longer to clean/flush/sanitize a 10 gal batch than a 5.
It doesn't really matter what you call it if it takes longer to heat up the flush water.

 

Hot tap water is more than adequate for cleaning. The water heaters do that and they don't complain about the batch size.

 

Good point, I have some access to a hot water faucet in my garage, but I'll bet there's a lot of folks who don't where they brew. Cheers

 

Invite more friends over to drink the beer so u can make more. I do ten gallon batches as well. Just double up on your yeast/ starters, grain bills, hop bills, etc. keep in mind it's gonna take longer to cool to get to yeast pitch temps etc.

 

Assuming your equipment is big enough (kettle, mash HLT) there isn;t a big difference.
Longer to heat water (more volume) and trickier to move things around (160 LBs of hot wort plus weight of kettle is no joke,) but otherwise similar.

 

this is a big plus for my new system. one of my two freezer/controllers requires two five gallon buckets, which will lend itself well to using different yeasts, different dry hops etc.

The other freezer holds one ten gallon batch. That one will be used for batches of repeats of beers that I've brewed before that have proven recipes, and that I want ten gallons of.

Information: progress was made on the man-cave over the weekend. It's getting close! Up next is siding and insulation (for the building itself), and purchasing the remaining hardware for assembly of the system.