With my couple years of experience and a few brews under my belt, I have always been thinking about ways to improve my beer by making my brew day more consistent, easier and faster. After much research and debating I came up with the system I used today.
First off, as the picture shows, I have a five gallon, two tier, homemade brew-stand. The stand was made by my father and I. I designed the stand and my dad built it, he's the metal worker. It is made out of old steel bed frames. We cut up the angle iron out of the bed frames, obtaining angle iron by this manner is much cheaper then buying it from the store. I bought two turkey friers from craigslist, each one costed $40. The both came with the propane tank and kettles. The friers are welded into the stand. I use two propane tanks, each connected to a burner. Underneath the higher tier is a circle BBQ grill grill, I use it as a shelf.The layout of the stand is the Hot Liquor Tank (HLT) is on the first tier, the Mash Tun is in the middle and the Boil Kettle on the end. I also have a march pump bolted to the bottom of the brew-stand.
The day begins with me rolling out the brew-stand. I hook up the hose and carbon water filter. I fill up the boil kettle to the 7 gallon mark and begin to heat to strike water temperature. I then add the grist to the mash tun. When the water has reached strike temperature, I add the the appropriate volume of water. I use a 1.33 gallons/lbs of grain ratio. I use a two liter pitcher to transfer the water. Once the mash has started, it sits for about an hour. Next comes filling up and heating the HLT to sparge temperature. Once this has been completed I now can relax till the mash is complete.
After an hour is past, recirculation can begin. I use a march pump to to recirculate the mash for 20 minutes at a very slow speed like 10 mLs of wort in 5 seconds. The slow speed is necessary for me because I found out if I recirculate to fast I compact the grain to much and get stuck a stuck mash and achieve poor efficiency. When the recirculation is complete, I begin to transfer to the kettle and start to fly sparge. The kettle gets filled up to 8 gallon mark. As I'm sparging, I have the boil kettle burner on to begin to heat up the wort, so it gets to boil faster.
Once the boil has begun, I proceed as normal. Adding hops and other things. I add yeast nutrient and Whirlflock at the 20 minute mark. At 15 minutes left in the I add the wort chiller. When I add the wort chiller I also connect it to the march pump and pump the boiling wort from the bottom of the kettle to the recirculation arm on the chiller to sanitize everything. At the end of boil, the volume of beer is 6.5 gallons and the flame turns off and the wort flows through the recirculation/whirlpool system to chill the wort and whirlpool. The whirlpool system spins the wort in the kettle and allows for the collection of all the turb in the center of the pot. Once the beer has reached pitching temperature, around 30 minutes. I disconnect the hose connected to the chiller and replace it with a sanitized hose. I pump the beer from the kettle to the fermentor. Since the ball valve is on the side of the pot I only pull clean clear wort from the outside and leave all the turb in the center.
When the beer is in the fermentor, I aerate with an O2 tank, pitch the yeast and throw on the carboy cap. That completes my brew day.
