First Batch Sparge a Success!

There were a lot of guesses as to strike temps, grain absorption, dead space, evaporation rate and what not, but the in the end, the first batch sparge was a success. We wound up with 15 gallons of weizen and a couple of extra gallons of what will be a funky "imperial" berliner weiss. 10 gallons of weizen is currently fermenting at 61* and 5 gallons is currently fermenting with an ambient temperature of 67*. The same yeast strain was used for both. The berliner weiss is sitting in the coolest part of my house where in the late afternoon ambient temps are around 80*. Why is it that on the rare occasions I ferment without temperature control there is ALWAYS a heat wave? And why is it the heat wave only lasts two to three days (during the most crucial part of fermentation)? Hopefully the berliner weiss will be drinkable...

A big thank you goes out to Todd and Brent for all their assistance and input.

Below is the setup. The cooler is connected to the pump to runoff into the kettle. Strike water and water for runoff were both brought up to temperature on the sculpture and transferred into the cooler via pump as well.

Here the wort is flowing into the 26 gallon kettle. We're getting a pretty good rate of transfer. The thermoplastic rubber tubing is 1/2" ID.



Lastly, just a touch above 23 gallons of wort boiling away...

The only significant issue for the day was cooling 17 gallons to pitching temperature (58*). For batches of 5-10 gallons, I've been able to get away with recirculating ice water (cooled with frozen water bottles) through an immersion chiller. This method was only good enough at dropping the wort temperature down to 84* on a relatively warm day. I ultimately had to use 60 pounds of ice to get the wort down to pitching temperature. On the plus side, once adding the ice, it only took ten to fifteen minutes.

Going forward, I'm going to have to look into making a hop hanger of sorts or using hop bags to minimize what winds up in the fermenter.

Oh, and I used Fermcap-S for the first time during the boil. Awesome awesome awesome foam control! I used it in the fermenters as well so hopefully no repeat of the Exerweizen...