Double MLT's.

I posted this last night and it got lost in internet wonderland someplace.  So, here it is again.

I currently mash in a 48 quart coleman cooler, with a mesh screen (tube).  I batch sparge.  My boil pot is 13 gallons.  This works great for 5 gallon batches.

I have a second identical 48 quart coleman cooler.  I also can get a 15 gallon keg boil pot for $60 from a friend.  What I'm thinking of doing is setting up the second cooler identical to my first one, so that I can do 10 gallon batches.  My set up is a three tiered (wire shelving racks with 250 lb. capacity).  I have been mashing on the middle tier, but want to put the second MLT on the top tier.  I can mash in both at the same time with identical recipes with the following process:

Option 1:
Mash in identical grain bills in both MLT's at the same time.
At the end of the mash add the small sparge addition to both MLT's to denature enzymes.
Lauter and drain lower MLT into boil pot.
Lauter and drain upper MLT into lower MLT.
Stir the lower MLT and let it rest while I perform the next step.
Add all of my sparge water to the upper MLT, stir and let rest while I lauter and drain the lower MLT into my boil pot.
At this time, if I've got this in my head correctly, I now have my first runnings in my boil pot.
Lauter and drain the upper MLT down into the lower MLT.
Stir the lower MLT and let it rest for 10 minutes.
Lauter and drain the lower MLT into my boil pot to get my pre-boil volume.

Option 2:
I could add a fly sparge arm going into the lower MLT from the higher MLT and once I start draining, if I balance the flows, I could possibly increase the efficiency coming out of the lower MLT even further.

The way I have it figured is that it's just like a 96 quart cooler MLT, but it's split. 

The advantages as I see them are:

• I can still do a 5 gallon batch (which is what I'll do most of the time still).
• I can do 10 gallon batches.
  • I can do two different 5 gallon batches at the same time, by not running them through each other, since I'll have two boil pots.
  • I can do parti-gyles of my high gravity beers, by doing either a high gravity 10 gallon batch and a lower gravity 5 gallon batch off the third runnings. 
    • I could even do a huge high gravity 5 gallon batch and then do a 1.060ish gravity 10 gallon batch with the later runnings.
    • I can introduce some of my extract brewing friends over to try all grain brewing in one MLT, while I'm mashing in the other MLT.  I've found that they tend to watch and don't participate enough, maybe because it's not their equipment and might feel it's not their place.  If they've brought their own ingredients and been encouraged to use the system, while I'm tending to my own, they might feel less uncomfortable using someone elses equipment.
  
  What I'm wondering is:
  Do you think this set up is a valid way to upgrade, since it keeps me from purchasing a new larger cooler?
  Will it work as I'm thinking it will?
  Is a fly sparge arm really necessary going into the lower MLT or will it even do much for my efficiency?  I'm thinking that since I have the mesh screens (10 inch long mesh tubes) in my MLT's that it wouldn't help much unless I were to upgrade to a better coverage type of tubing arrangement in the bottom of my lower MLT.
  
  I welcome any thoughts on this, suggestions to improve it, negatives that you see, positives that you see, etc.
  
  Thanks in advance for any advice, etc.

Personal preference: Replace your existing mash tun with a larger one capable of handling the larger batch. I've been simplifying my system. Every time I add a component or process I find new ways to screw up. That may be my Old dawg" process, but if you have a process that works well, I'd recommend sticking with it.

You might consider Denny Conn's system; it's the height of simplicity and his beers are consistent award-winners. If you're not familiar with it check      dennybrew.com

The way I look at it is that I'm not changing my process.  I'm just increasing my production by adding more mash volume and a larger boil pot.  The mash process will be the same, just with a hose between the two mash tuns.

durrettd said:

I've been simplifying my system.

Click to expand...

This is my philosophy to, An upgrade to me means freeing up brew time to get other essential brew tasks completed and the less to clean up the better!

Do your thing, Scott!

RiverBrewer said:

durrettd said:

I've been simplifying my system.

Click to expand...

This is my philosophy to, An upgrade to me means freeing up brew time to get other essential brew tasks completed and the less to clean up the better!

Do your thing, Scott!

Click to expand...

I did my thing.  I purchased everything to pipe up my second cooler today!

Like I said in the other thread, I like your idea.
I've got a 10 gallon round beverage cooler for a tun.  I've got another 5 gallon cooler like it that I'm not doing anything with, so that takes me to  15 gallons.
If I find a 10 gallon cooler cheap and convert it, I have a system that where I can have a 5, 10, 15 or 20 gallon tun. Always having a big enough tun without having to deal with a tun that's large enough for a 15 gallon parti-gyle when I want to do a 5 gallon batch of IPA.  I hate lots of dead space....    Full tuns have better thermal properties.

I like the option of running the upper tun's wort through the lower.  You can sparge from top to bottom also.  That should up efficiency.   
I batch sparge but I've been thinking about a float valved sparge arm.  Think along the principal of a toilet tank float.
Two of them would make the system where all you have to do is pay attention to the rate you run the wort out and everything upstream would take care of it's self.

I still want to build a heat exchange system, but that's many hundreds of dollars from now.
This would have me able to greatly increase the grain bill with not much extra money.

I don't see a lot of extra complexity.  After you figure out the flow rates for the sparge, the rest is same old same old.
The tuns are the same so if you store them together, their temp is the same, the grain is all one temp and so is the water.  The mash should be consistent. Sparge may be a degree or two different in the second tun but that is irrelevant.

You've pretty much hit it on the head.  The biggest advantage I see to my system and yours is the ability to brew whatever size batch you want without having the extra head space to deal with.  When I make a huge RIS or Barley Wine, I don't want ten gallons of it.  I only want 5 gallons.  When I make a lower ABV session ale, I want 10 to 15 gallons. 

I did a 10 gallon batch of amber ale at 1.046 in my 48 quart cooler.  It was full, but worked well. 

If I brew a session ale at or below 1.046 with the two cooler set up, I can make 20 gallons in one brewing session with my current setup. 

I've determined I can do 15 gallon batches up to about 1.060. 

I can theoretically do 10 gallon batches up to about 1.100.  Although, when I've tried to do 5 gallon batches in the 48 quart cooler only, my efficiency tends to keep me from reaching 1.100.  I usually top out at about 1.095.  I'm hoping the extra sparging through the bottom cooler will improve my efficiency on the higher OG batches.

I've got two words for you if you want to make some big beer with that setup, plus some very nice session beer.
Parti gyle
I did an enlarged version of my black butte in my 10 gallon tun.  The first runnings only came out to about 4 gallons after an extended boil ( due to my bad figures on 90 minute boil loss).  I ended up with a 26 brix reading or a about a 1.110 O.G.!  I also ended up with 5 gallons of what I hope will be a nice hazelnut brown ale.  I would tell you it's gravity also but I don't want to fire up beersmith right now to read the notes.
Parti-gyle is fun, but it would be more fun with a second burner so I could boil both at the same time.
I did that one after work and with two boils, one being 90 minutes, I got done about 4:00 A.M.  I then got up at 6:00 to go to work.
Parti-gyle is a weekend morning thing from now on.

With all that extra space you could really have fun with a parti-gyle brew.
You have the option of adding grains after the first runnings to change up the second beer you get.
With all that volume you can do 5 gallons of barley wine and 10 gallons of pale ale or IPA.  Scotch ale and Scottish ale.  The possibilities are endless, especially for someone who likes to experiment with brewing.

2 brews at once would be neat. I've never run into it before, but oversparging the middle cooler might be a concern. Since you seem fond of experiments... you could try a no sparge vs a well sparged batch all on the same brew day to get an idea of what flavors sparging adds.

grathan said:

2 brews at once would be neat. I've never run into it before, but oversparging the middle cooler might be a concern. Since you seem fond of experiments... you could try a no sparge vs a well sparged batch all on the same brew day to get an idea of what flavors sparging adds.

Click to expand...

I don't see any more chance of over sparging than you would have if you doubled the cooler size.
Think of it this way.

If you had a cooler that was 2' X 2' X 1.5 high and you wanted to double it, you could either get another identical cooler or get one that was 2' X 2' X 3' high.
What would be different about the amount of sparge water going through the lower cooler in a 2 cooler system and the amount of sparge water passing through the lower half of the larger cooler?

You would run it just like a large tun.
Starch conversion test at the beginning and tasting the wort as it's running near the end.

My biggest concern would be a stuck mash due to the flow and I would attempt to deal with that by adding some rice hulls.

If you got any off flavors, a simple solution would be to batch sparge and drain both tuns into the boil kettle.

For a parti-gyle you would simply drain both, add sparge water and mix like a regular batch sparge then let it sit and mash some more while you boil the first runnings anyway.

I did a parti-gyle back on June 9th of this year with only my one 48 quart cooler!  I made my Cherry/chocolate RIS and aged it on bourbon and oak in the secondary.  The OG was 1.084.  Beersmith said it would be 1.089 OG, so I was a little short on OG.  It scored 43.2 at a competition in early August.  With the two pints of bourbon in it, it ended up at 11% ABV.  I've saved 36 bottles of it, because it will only get better with age.

With the second runnings I made 5 gallons of a guinness clone at 1.046 OG.  I soured it with lactic acid in the secondary.  2 ounces of lactic acid for souring for 5 gallons was way too much lactic acid!  A fellow brewer loved it, but for me it was way too sour and undrinkable for me.  So I made a second 5 gallon batch of the guinness clone on June 29th.  I blended the unsoured batch with the soured batch at bottling and it turned out quite well.  It was still too sour at bottling and I was thinking about making a third batch to cut the sour even more, but decided to just go with it, since it was at least drinkable at this point.  So I have over 4 cases of soured dry stout.  What I didn't expect was for it to lose even more of the souring effect with age.  But it just keeps getting better and better.  When I want a beer, it's the first one that I reach for now.  It's quite good.  By the way, it only scored 18.5 at the same competition that the RIS scored 43.2.  It was only in the bottles for 6 days at the time of judging though, so I knew it would get hit for carbonation and it got hammered for carbonation and the souring.  I'm going to save some bottles of this for later competitions.  It might actually score in the 30's now.  I don't think a 30's level score is bad for what is basically free beer, because that is what second runnings actually are, is free beer.  I even used harvested yeast from an earlier brown ale for the guinness clone.  I still have two more pints of that yeast, but it's getting quite old.  I'd have to see how it does in a starter.  I've since used other pints of that harvested yeast in an English ESB and my Tootsie Roll Stout.

Parti-gyling is a lot of work with one boil pot.  I started at 11 a.m. that day and didn't get done until about 8 in the evening.  From now on, when I parti-gyle, I'll make sure that I start at 9 a.m.