Ace electric boilers?

[Tony1951]

Hi Tony,thanks for your reply,can I ask you how you go about your sparging,do you use a picnic box arrangement or drip drain,do you mash out do you use mash temp water? Like I said I'm new to this and want to go this way with an ace
Thanks tony

Glad to tell you Godsdog.

I do the mash in about 15litres in the boiler (mine is an insulated one which they sell for a bit more and it holds the temperature quite well - even better if I pull a sleeping bag over the boiler).

Towards the end of the mash - maybe with half an hour to go, I start getting my sparge water together in the kitchen using the kettle to boil some and storing it in a 12 litre pot on the electric hob. This will save time later.

After the one hour mash completes, I partially extract the bag from the boiler and let it drip as much as possible back inside. To do this I just get the bag up out of the water and hold it above using my wrists to sort of prop it on the edge of the boiler. Mine is used at a base height about three feet off the ground so it might be a pain to hold the bag up there for too long and it takes a good while to drain the grains much. By locking it with my wrists it uses no muscle energy to hold it there to drip a while.

Next I put the bag of grains inside a spare fermentation vessel on the floor and pour about ten litres of 75 C sparge water over the bag and I stir the grains inside the bag so that the water is well integrated. I pick the bag up and drain it back into FV and then dunk it in again and repeat a time or two. Then I drain the bag, put it in a large pan for a minute and empty my first sparge water into the boiler with the first run liquor which probably amounts to only about 11 or at best 12 litres because of wort retained in the grain bag. So I might have 22litres at best in the boiler by now - could be less, but not much.

I turn the boiler back on now to save some time as there is a lot of water at about 65C now to be raised to the boil which takes a wee while, and while that is going on I take the grain bag and do another smaller sparge as before but this time with about 5 litres of water.

Like before, I give it a good stir and leave for ten minutes. There is still good colour in this third run of liquor and it tastes sweet. I haven't ever bothered to take a specific gravity measure. Should do.

I now top up the boiler to the full mark which is 25litres. Don't over fill or it will boil over when it foams up at the start of the boil before the protein breaks. The boiler has a very vigorous boil so don't go above that mark. I still have about three litres of water in the FV sparge vessel, so I now put that in a pan on the stove in the kitchen and bring that to the boil while the main boil is going on in the ACE Boiler. Later, I will use that spare sparge water to top up the ace boiler as it loses fluid through boiling off as steam. The reason I am boiling it while the main boiler is evaporating steam is that all the wort needs to be boiled to drive of DMS precursors.

The odd time, I have had a small amount of spare wort - a litre or so left over maybe, but I use that for making yeast starters or growing on yeast that I have harvested for use in another brew.

By doing this method, I seem to get good strong beer - about 23L of 6.5% ABV IPA out of six kilos of grain.

Hope that helps - sorry it is so long. I tend to go on a bit... :drink:

 

[Godsdog]

Glad to tell you Godsdog.

I do the mash in about 15litres in the boiler (mine is an insulated one which they sell for a bit more and it holds the temperature quite well - even better if I pull a sleeping bag over the boiler).

Towards the end of the mash - maybe with half an hour to go, I start getting my sparge water together in the kitchen using the kettle to boil some and storing it in a 12 litre pot on the electric hob. This will save time later.

After the one hour mash completes, I partially extract the bag from the boiler and let it drip as much as possible back inside. To do this I just get the bag up out of the water and hold it above using my wrists to sort of prop it on the edge of the boiler. Mine is used at a base height about three feet off the ground so it might be a pain to hold the bag up there for too long and it takes a good while to drain the grains much. By locking it with my wrists it uses no muscle energy to hold it there to drip a while.

Next I put the bag of grains inside a spare fermentation vessel on the floor and pour about ten litres of 75 C sparge water over the bag and I stir the grains inside the bag so that the water is well integrated. I pick the bag up and drain it back into FV and then dunk it in again and repeat a time or two. Then I drain the bag, put it in a large pan for a minute and empty my first sparge water into the boiler with the first run liquor which probably amounts to only about 11 or at best 12 litres because of wort retained in the grain bag. So I might have 22litres at best in the boiler by now - could be less, but not much.

I turn the boiler back on now to save some time as there is a lot of water at about 65C now to be raised to the boil which takes a wee while, and while that is going on I take the grain bag and do another smaller sparge as before but this time with about 5 litres of water.

Like before, I give it a good stir and leave for ten minutes. There is still good colour in this third run of liquor and it tastes sweet. I haven't ever bothered to take a specific gravity measure. Should do.

I now top up the boiler to the full mark which is 25litres. Don't over fill or it will boil over when it foams up at the start of the boil before the protein breaks. The boiler has a very vigorous boil so don't go above that mark. I still have about three litres of water in the FV sparge vessel, so I now put that in a pan on the stove in the kitchen and bring that to the boil while the main boil is going on in the ACE Boiler. Later, I will use that spare sparge water to top up the ace boiler as it loses fluid through boiling off as steam. The reason I am boiling it while the main boiler is evaporating steam is that all the wort needs to be boiled to drive of DMS precursors.

The odd time, I have had a small amount of spare wort - a litre or so left over maybe, but I use that for making yeast starters or growing on yeast that I have harvested for use in another brew.

By doing this method, I seem to get good strong beer - about 23L of 6.5% ABV IPA out of six kilos of grain.

Hope that helps - sorry it is so long. I tend to go on a bit... :drink:

A very informative reply Tony,thank you very much

 

[winstonia]

Can you mash into this without a bag or biab only btw?

 

[Covrich]

Can you mash into this without a bag or biab only btw?

No reason to literally not I guess but the bag makes it far easier to remove the grains as people will mostly still boil in this vessel.

Without the bag I can see it being a pain to remove the grain

 

[Twostage]

No reason to literally not I guess but the bag makes it far easier to remove the grains as people will mostly still boil in this vessel.

Without the bag I can see it being a pain to remove the grain

I've had the bag undo itself twice in the boiler and it is a bit of a pain but not as bad as you would think - drain the wort into the FV, tip the grain out, pour the wort back into the boiler. You have to be able to lift an FV full of wort above the boiler though to pour it back in, or move the boiler to lower than the FV and then lift it back up.

I'd recommend a bag, though, certainly.

 

[Tony1951]

I'm thinking of remaking the filter that comes with this boiler. Increasingly of late, the thing has refused to drain any fluid through the filter unless I stroke it constantly with a spatula to keep the crud clear of the mesh. This results in my getting more trub than I would expect, though it has no effect on the finished beer which has been getting better and better. On my last brew about five weeks ago, I gave up and just baled the whole boiler into the FV including a stack of centennial hops and all the trub.On tasting the beer after a fortnight in the FV I KNEW instantly that I had a winner. Best APA I ever had - PACKED with wonderful hoppy flavours. Other people also said it was excellent. This accident, born out of despair at having my brew stuck in the boiler because of a blocked filter was a piece of good fortune. Drank a fair bit of that brew yesterday on the 25th with my family of grown up lads and the only reason any of it is left is that I put a embargo on them having any more of it. They scoffed twenty bottles the buggers.

 

[Fil]

I'm thinking of remaking the filter that comes with this boiler. Increasingly of late, the thing has refused to drain any fluid through the filter unless I stroke it constantly with a spatula to keep the crud clear of the mesh. This results in my getting more trub than I would expect, though it has no effect on the finished beer which has been getting better and better. On my last brew about five weeks ago, I gave up and just baled the whole boiler into the FV including a stack of centennial hops and all the trub.On tasting the beer after a fortnight in the FV I KNEW instantly that I had a winner. Best APA I ever had - PACKED with wonderful hoppy flavours. Other people also said it was excellent. This accident, born out of despair at having my brew stuck in the boiler because of a blocked filter was a piece of good fortune. Drank a fair bit of that brew yesterday on the 25th with my family of grown up lads and the only reason any of it is left is that I put a embargo on them having any more of it. They scoffed twenty bottles the buggers.

if its a braded mesh filter ? they benefit from removing drying and then a violent bit of flexing, that should result in a lot of dust/flour that can clog them up flying off, rinse it in clean water again flexing it, and let it dry and repeat until it stops sheeding flour when dry, twice generally does it..

 

[Cwrw666]

Strangely I've found that the mesh filter works differently with different styles of brew - I made some hoppy single hop ale and it worked well, but with brown ale it clogs up all the time.
Basically though, it sits too low in the trub, rather than being sited above it.

 

[Steved53]

Am I missing something here?
The link in the original post shows this item priced at £1,099.99! Is this what people are paying for it?

 

[stevej]

Am I missing something here?
The link in the original post shows this item priced at ��£1,099.99! Is this what people are paying for it?

I suspect its a typo :grin:

 

[Tony1951]

if its a braded mesh filter ? they benefit from removing drying and then a violent bit of flexing, that should result in a lot of dust/flour that can clog them up flying off, rinse it in clean water again flexing it, and let it dry and repeat until it stops sheeding flour when dry, twice generally does it..

Thanks for the tip Fil. I'll try that, but I am also considering buying a longer length of the braid and making a filter that pokes up a bit above the trub as mentioned by Crww66 in the post below yours. I sparged in the boiler a couple of days ago leaving the grain bag in there and this meant I opened the tap and poured off the runnings three times and everything flowed nicely, but after decanting the lot back into the boiler and boiling it, it blocked within two pints of wort being drawn off. Seems that the boiled solids are what block it, but I will pay attention to what you suggest. I have just been rinsing out the boiler with cold water, swilling it about a bit and repeating a couple of times.

 

[stewb85]

Spoke to the people at Ace this morning. Seems these have been very popular. They're currently selling the current model with one of the elements removed to give a better rolling boil. They're looking to get the new model out where you can select the element to turn on by the end of April. I'm torn as whether to wait, but it does sound like the new one will be better for maintaining a good mash temperature.

 

[Cwrw666]

if its a braded mesh filter ? they benefit from removing drying and then a violent bit of flexing, that should result in a lot of dust/flour that can clog them up flying off, rinse it in clean water again flexing it, and let it dry and repeat until it stops sheeding flour when dry, twice generally does it..

Thanks for that advice Fil, I did a brew yesterday (ruby mild from Greg Hughes book - though what sort of `mild' is 4.6%ABV I don't know). Anyway, took off the filter first and gave it a good scrub. This time the wort ran through clear as a bell, only clogging for the last few pints. by the way, I did also bend the filter so that it angled upwards above the trub.

 

[Tony1951]

Thanks for that advice Fil, I did a brew yesterday (ruby mild from Greg Hughes book - though what sort of `mild' is 4.6%ABV I don't know). Anyway, took off the filter first and gave it a good scrub. This time the wort ran through clear as a bell, only clogging for the last few pints. by the way, I did also bend the filter so that it angled upwards above the trub.

Don't know if you find this, but I get that stumpy filter snagged on my grain bag. since I am generally using grain bills of a touch over 6kg, when I start lifting the bag out and it snags on the filter, it gets to be a bit of a lift to get it up. I think some longer braided hose might be easier to arrange in the boiler, maybe to one side and with a hump in it so it comes above the trub a bit. Thinking of it like one of the Loch Ness Monster's humps - :)

 

[Alcoholx]

Am I missing something here?
The link in the original post shows this item priced at ��£1,099.99! Is this what people are paying for it?

Its an ebay thing.. sellers put up the price of items to stupid prices that nobody would pay when they run out of stock, if they do it this way it means they dont have to re-list the item.. it probably saves them money on listing fees, they just put the price back down when its back in stock.. i think these sell at about £90 - £120 quid depending on what comes with it

 

[Cwrw666]

Don't know if you find this, but I get that stumpy filter snagged on my grain bag. since I am generally using grain bills of a touch over 6kg, when I start lifting the bag out and it snags on the filter, it gets to be a bit of a lift to get it up. I think some longer braided hose might be easier to arrange in the boiler, maybe to one side and with a hump in it so it comes above the trub a bit. Thinking of it like one of the Loch Ness Monster's humps - :)

Not noticed this problem myself, though i can see why it might happen as the end of the filter is flattened and quite `pointy'. Could be that the mesh of our grain bags is slightly different?
I actually brew in an old building outside so I've rigged up a pulley above where I have the boiler so I can hoist the grain bag out easier using a rope, then leave it hanging above the boiler to drain. Makes life a lot easier, especially with high alcohol brews.
I've been thinking of fitting a 90 degree bend to the tap so I can site the filter up the side of the boiler. Only downside I can see is that I'd have to put something in the bottom to keep the bag off the element. At the moment, the filter does this.

 

[Tony1951]

I've been thinking of fitting a 90 degree bend to the tap so I can site the filter up the side of the boiler. Only downside I can see is that I'd have to put something in the bottom to keep the bag off the element. At the moment, the filter does this.

That's a good idea. I actually don't fire up the element once the grain goes in. I raise the water to the required strike temperature after using an online calculator and once I slip an old sleeping bag over it, it stays pretty much within limits. I have the insulated version of the boiler though and from memory, I don't think you do. I suppose over an hour the temperature may fall as low as about 63 or 64 C but I don't see any loss of efficiency through this. All the texts suggest that most of the conversion happens quite early in the mash.

I used to remove the bag and do about three rinses in a brewing bin with water at 75C, returning this sparge water to the boiler along with the first and highest gravity wort, but this time I ran off the wort successively into a brewing bin. Out of the first 15 litres of water that the grain went into, I drew off 9 litres of strong wort, then I added two more infusions of hot water (70 - 75C) in 8 litre lots and a smaller one of a couple of litres. I had a full 25 litres boiling in the boiler at the start and about another six in a large pan on the stove indoors and I used this as top up wort as the boiler level went down. I probably have about 25 litres of 1052 OG now in the FV under US05.

 

[Tony1951]

I tried a new technique with my Ace boiler yesterday. I did a really big IPA, mashing in the boiler WITHOUT a grain bag. I just put in 15 litres of mash water, brought it to a measured 78C (I don't trust the accuracy of the thermostat cut-off) and then emptied in and stirred 6KG of grain into the bare boiler. As I said above, I am reluctant to use the element during the mash so I cover the boiler with a sleeping bag and wait out the hour. Even on a foul, cold wet day, at the end of the hour the mash was at 64C.

I drained the boiler into a ready cleaned FV, and sparged twice. First with 10 litres for twenty minutes and then with about 8 litres of 75C sparge water, stirring the grains steadily each time in the sparge water and then draining off each batch into the FV on the floor under the ACE boiler which stands on a sturdy chest.

I then swilled out the boiler into my compost bin and cleaned it up for the boil. This only took about three minutes with a hose on hand ready.

This leaves me with more runnings than I can fit into the boiler without it coming over the top, but I put about 25litres into the boiler and started the heating up and boil, and put the rest, maybe about 7 litres onto the stove in my Wilco pot and brought that to the boil as the Ace boiled off in the normal way. Both lots of runnings are boiling at the same time, but as the Ace evaporates away, I top up from the stove pot.

My wort came in at 1062 SG which was much better than I expected.

Unfortunately, I had a minor boil over near the end of the boil when I put the ACE lid half on and went down to the house for something. This meant that I ended up slightly shy of my aimed for 23 litres, so I added back just under two litres of boiled water and ended up with a SG of 1060, which will still produce a mighty IPA at about 6.8% and in the bottle, 7% with the carbonation sugar factored in. I am assuming that the fermentation will bring the SG down to 1010 with those estimates. It usually ends about there in my brews.

This mashing technique without the bag allows a more thorough rinsing of the sugars off the grain than my previous method of rinsing the bag in a FV with hot water. The same grain bill ten days ago produced an OG of 1052, nearly a whole percentage point ABV or about 15% lighter in the final beer.

The essential thing here is you need somewhere to dump the spent grain and water when swilling out the ace after mashing. My compost bin is ideal for that.

 

[Cwrw666]

That's a good idea. I actually don't fire up the element once the grain goes in. I raise the water to the required strike temperature after using an online calculator and once I slip an old sleeping bag over it, it stays pretty much within limits. I have the insulated version of the boiler though and from memory, I don't think you do. I suppose over an hour the temperature may fall as low as about 63 or 64 C but I don't see any loss of efficiency through this. All the texts suggest that most of the conversion happens quite early in the mash.

I used to remove the bag and do about three rinses in a brewing bin with water at 75C, returning this sparge water to the boiler along with the first and highest gravity wort, but this time I ran off the wort successively into a brewing bin. Out of the first 15 litres of water that the grain went into, I drew off 9 litres of strong wort, then I added two more infusions of hot water (70 - 75C) in 8 litre lots and a smaller one of a couple of litres. I had a full 25 litres boiling in the boiler at the start and about another six in a large pan on the stove indoors and I used this as top up wort as the boiler level went down. I probably have about 25 litres of 1052 OG now in the FV under US05.

Yes, my ace boiler is not insulated, though i have an old camping carrymat cut to fit and fastened round it. What I do for the mash is - raise the water temperature to 150 (sorry, fahrenheit! - I think mash temp. is meant to be 149, so close enough) then add the grains which lowers it to 142 or thereabouts. But I leave the heat on so it slowly rises, but only to about 146-148, though I'm sure the grains in the bottom of the bag probably get hotter than this.
Anyway, it seems to work as, along with a single dunk sparge, my efficiency seems pretty good.

 

[Cwrw666]

I tried a new technique with my Ace boiler yesterday. I did a really big IPA, mashing in the boiler WITHOUT a grain bag. I just put in 15 litres of mash water, brought it to a measured 78C (I don't trust the accuracy of the thermostat cut-off) and then emptied in and stirred 6KG of grain into the bare boiler. As I said above, I am reluctant to use the element during the mash so I cover the boiler with a sleeping bag and wait out the hour. Even on a foul, cold wet day, at the end of the hour the mash was at 64C.

I drained the boiler into a ready cleaned FV, and sparged twice. First with 10 litres for twenty minutes and then with about 8 litres of 75C sparge water, stirring the grains steadily each time in the sparge water and then draining off each batch into the FV on the floor under the ACE boiler which stands on a sturdy chest.

I then swilled out the boiler into my compost bin and cleaned it up for the boil. This only took about three minutes with a hose on hand ready.

This leaves me with more runnings than I can fit into the boiler without it coming over the top, but I put about 25litres into the boiler and started the heating up and boil, and put the rest, maybe about 7 litres onto the stove in my Wilco pot and brought that to the boil as the Ace boiled off in the normal way. Both lots of runnings are boiling at the same time, but as the Ace evaporates away, I top up from the stove pot.

My wort came in at 1062 SG which was much better than I expected.

Unfortunately, I had a minor boil over near the end of the boil when I put the ACE lid half on and went down to the house for something. This meant that I ended up slightly shy of my aimed for 23 litres, so I added back just under two litres of boiled water and ended up with a SG of 1060, which will still produce a mighty IPA at about 6.8% and in the bottle, 7% with the carbonation sugar factored in. I am assuming that the fermentation will bring the SG down to 1010 with those estimates. It usually ends about there in my brews.

This mashing technique without the bag allows a more thorough rinsing of the sugars off the grain than my previous method of rinsing the bag in a FV with hot water. The same grain bill ten days ago produced an OG of 1052, nearly a whole percentage point ABV or about 15% lighter in the final beer.

The essential thing here is you need somewhere to dump the spent grain and water when swilling out the ace after mashing. My compost bin is ideal for that.

Did the boiler drain ok? No problems with the filter clogging?
This sounds a whole lot easier than hoisting bags of grain saturated in wort out of the boiler and burning your hands squeezing it out.:lol: