Last Friday I brewed two 5gal batches, a Saison and an APA, and took some screenshots. I've brewed this APA before, which is (not so) loosely based on Jamil's APA from Brewing Classic Styles. The Saison is also based on a recipe from his book.
First up was the APA.
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Amount Item Type % or IBU
11.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 84.62 %
0.75 lb Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 5.77 %
0.75 lb Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 5.77 %
0.50 lb Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 3.85 %
0.66 oz Horizon [13.00 %] (60 min) Hops 25.6 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [6.00 %] (10 min) Hops 3.3 IBU
0.50 oz Centennial [9.00 %] (10 min) Hops 4.9 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (0 min) Hops -
0.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (0 min) Hops -
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.064 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.015 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.40 %
My system is a 48qt cooler based MLT, with a small ~2gal external heat exchanger with a heating element and herms coil. My BCS-460 controls the element and the pump. I went home over my lunch hour and assembled my system, measured out the strike water, and dumped it into the MLT. Then manually primed the pump to make sure that everything was flowing. Then back to work!
My little 1500W is great for maintaining temps, but slow heating strike water. So about 2 hours before I left work, I logged into my BCS-460 and kicked off the heat strike process.
Click img for an interactive chart (as you would see in the BCS). There are 3 probes in my system. from top to bottom:
- The top grey (trace3) is the temp inside the dedicated heat exchanger
- Blue (trace1) is the wort temperature, as it exit the heat exchanger coil. This temp controls the element via PID algorithm.
- Red (trace0) is a probe directly in the MLT. This temp usually lags the hex output temp by a degree or 2, but settles out when the system stabilizes.
![Image](http://www.embeddedcontrolconcepts.com/tmp/bd1_brew_strike.jpg)
Mash in. At about time 12min, I dough in at 1.25qt/lb, stir, and then close the lid and recirculate.
![Image](http://www.embeddedcontrolconcepts.com/tmp/bd1_brew_mashin.jpg)
40 minutes into the mash. Aiming for 152deg, and its looking good.
![Image](http://www.embeddedcontrolconcepts.com/tmp/bd1_brew_ctrl_mash.jpg)
My feeble attempt at a mashout:
![Image](http://www.embeddedcontrolconcepts.com/tmp/bd1_brew_mashout.jpg)
Sparged, and got the APA boiling. While the APA was mashing, i preheated some water for the Saison. The APA brew was extremely smooth. Too bad the second half of my brewday wasn't as easy...