LODO brewing on a Nanobrewery scale
Posted: Tue May 23, 2017 5:38 pm
I own and operate a small scale (3bbl) nanobrewery. I have been very proud of my brews and we have had a lot of success but the one style that has eluded me is a lager with that German "it" quality I can only describe as honey. IMO, American versions of German styles are fine but most do not touch real German versions. I know many of you agree and that is why I am here.
I am afraid that because of our size (no where near automation level and way too big to manually manipulate things) we might be in the hardest spot of all. Perhaps not? Again, that's why I'm here. Below, I will post pictures of our process and equipment as well as highlight potential problems and solutions. I will be incredibly grateful for any and all input. Thanks in advance.
This is our grain mill. It's not much to look at but it gets the job done. I don't see any issue with adding some water to condition the grain before milling but we've noticed that when we do a coarser grind our efficiency drops pretty dramatically. Even at our loosest settings we have never even approached what many LODO brewers describe. (Low efficiency will be a frequent concern throughout this post)
This is the big one...Mashing in. We have no type of delivery system for grain and must mix with a paddle. I have heard that you are supposed to put the grain in first and then fill the MT through the bottom (underletting). We can do this easily but again I worry that lack of vigorous stirring will kill efficiency.
Just to the right of Jeff (orange shirt) is our HLT which brings up another concern. We can certainly boil our strike water but bringing it down to temp quickly enough would be very difficult. The way I see it we have three options:
1. Boil the water and run it through the heat exchanger and then back into the HLT until temp drops to strike level. (serious risk of aeration in the return to the HLT from splashing and also the journey through the 41 plates of the heat exchanger)
2. Bubble nitrogen through at strike temp. From what I've read 20-30 minutes of nitrogen bubbling is enough to drop DO to 0.2ppm. Also, we have a nitrogen generator that extracts N2 from the atmosphere so cost of the gas is not an issue. (will it work? If so, this seems to be the winner.)
3. Get an in-line membrane degasser http://www.liquicel.com/applications/O2.cfm (expensive!)
More posts to come. Just didn't want to overshoot any potential size limit and am therefore splitting them up.
I am afraid that because of our size (no where near automation level and way too big to manually manipulate things) we might be in the hardest spot of all. Perhaps not? Again, that's why I'm here. Below, I will post pictures of our process and equipment as well as highlight potential problems and solutions. I will be incredibly grateful for any and all input. Thanks in advance.
- IMG_20170523_085239536.jpg (3.84 MiB) Viewed 8927 times
This is our grain mill. It's not much to look at but it gets the job done. I don't see any issue with adding some water to condition the grain before milling but we've noticed that when we do a coarser grind our efficiency drops pretty dramatically. Even at our loosest settings we have never even approached what many LODO brewers describe. (Low efficiency will be a frequent concern throughout this post)
- IMG_20170523_085155630.jpg (3.95 MiB) Viewed 8927 times
This is the big one...Mashing in. We have no type of delivery system for grain and must mix with a paddle. I have heard that you are supposed to put the grain in first and then fill the MT through the bottom (underletting). We can do this easily but again I worry that lack of vigorous stirring will kill efficiency.
Just to the right of Jeff (orange shirt) is our HLT which brings up another concern. We can certainly boil our strike water but bringing it down to temp quickly enough would be very difficult. The way I see it we have three options:
1. Boil the water and run it through the heat exchanger and then back into the HLT until temp drops to strike level. (serious risk of aeration in the return to the HLT from splashing and also the journey through the 41 plates of the heat exchanger)
2. Bubble nitrogen through at strike temp. From what I've read 20-30 minutes of nitrogen bubbling is enough to drop DO to 0.2ppm. Also, we have a nitrogen generator that extracts N2 from the atmosphere so cost of the gas is not an issue. (will it work? If so, this seems to be the winner.)
3. Get an in-line membrane degasser http://www.liquicel.com/applications/O2.cfm (expensive!)
More posts to come. Just didn't want to overshoot any potential size limit and am therefore splitting them up.