Process Improvement Experimentation

I am thinking about starting to try some different techniques to make my brew day even easier without compromising the beer.

  • Using a Brew Bag. This is normally used for brew in a bag (BIAB) systems but can also be used in a dedicated mash tun.  I will continue to use my false bottom but the bag will allow easy removal and disposal of the grains after the mash is complete.  This will also cut down of the effort and time needed to clean the mash tun.
  • Pick up some iodine cheap to check for conversion completion rather than always mash a set time of 60 minutes.
  • Switch to batch sparging vs the current fly sparging.  This will eliminate the hour long sparge process.  I small efficiency loss is no big deal as long as it is consistent.   I can take this farther and stop doing a mash out.  Instead while I drain the first runnings I will bring the HLT up to 170 for the sparge water.  This will eliminate the 10 or so minutes it takes to heat the whole mash to 168 via recirculation.
  • Try low or no-chill brewing.  This will save time, reduce water waste, and add the chiller to one less thing I need to clean.   Folks in our local homebrewing club have been experimenting with this with success.
  • Build a single step beer line cleaning process for all 5 taps similar to this post. The only special step would be to remove the restrictor plate from the stout tap.