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I throttle the pump from the ball valve of the kettle. No problems whatsoever. I haven't had any cavitation from these pumps as they don't pull so hard like a chugger would.
 
I have a question for you all. Should I be supplying hose clamps with the systems? I haven't for ease of cleaning and didn't find more than the odd drip but if you are experiencing more than that I will definitely make the change.
 
whovous said:
Thanks, Steven.

It tasted a whole lot better than anything I've brewed before. My stepson said that if this was served to him in some $7 a glass craft beer bar he'd be very happy with it. Granted, not the toughest audience, but it was good.

The recipe was mine. I tried to follow BJCP guidelines for APAs. The bitter is very clean and not especially long lasting. Aroma is just OK, at least to my aging nose. Taste is reasonably complex and quite "juicy." Color is OK. Mouthfeel is pretty smooth and round, and where I wanted it to be.

Head is not very long lasting and the bubbles are too large. Lacing is light.

This is after two weeks in the fermenter followed by a three day dry hop in the fermenter. No cold crash. Thirteen days in bottles followed by one day in the refrigerator.

"Chill haze" is next on my learning list. Each of my gallon kit beers before this was simply all clouds all the time. This one was crystal clear in the bottle before refrigeration. I did not know before this that a bottle could be clear when warm and cloudy when cool. It is too late for almost everything I could have done to avoid a chill haze this time around, although I am going to cold condition some bottles for about five days before opening the next one. Dunno how much that will help.

Still, while there are lots of faults to be found, I am over the moon happy with how this came out. I made a bunch of mistakes while familiarizing myself with a new system, and it is still a darn tasty brew.

Phil Anderson
Click to expand...

Very good! Sounds like it's working great.
I have to be honest, I have never bottled even one beer. I started with kegging and also haven't tackled the chill haze issue. I do a cold crash to 35 for 24 hours when fermentation is complete and right before I keg. Supposedly that helps with chill haze but I'm unfamiliar with bottling protocol. The first time I did it I sucked up my airlock water and stressed about it for a week waiting for it to carbonate but it turned out without infection luckily.
So now I pull out the airlock when crashing.
 
brausupply said:
I have a question for you all. Should I be supplying hose clamps with the systems? I haven't for ease of cleaning and didn't find more than the odd drip but if you are experiencing more than that I will definitely make the change.
Click to expand...

I haven't had any leaks at all with your supplied hardware. The silicon hoses included are a nice tight fit over the barbs. The only leak I've had so far was from a different suppliers silicon tubing I used from the pump to plate chiller that was a little loose on the barb.
 
I'd say yes. I've had only the odd drip myself, but I managed to pull a hose completely off without trying very hard and made a bit of a mess that way. My fault, obviously, but protecting the customer from his own idiocy is a well respected principle of commerce.
 
brausupply said:
I have a question for you all. Should I be supplying hose clamps with the systems? I haven't for ease of cleaning and didn't find more than the odd drip but if you are experiencing more than that I will definitely make the change.
Click to expand...

I'd say either throw in some hose clamps or find some hose that has a slightly tighter fit around the barb. Sounds like I've had larger drips than others here. Not sure why. It made quite a mess on the counter top but was thankfully only water. During auto tuning I simply tightened some zip ties around the connections and the leaking stopped.

I was hoping to avoid hose clamps for the very reason you mention, ease of cleaning. But here are the clamps I bought.

Two Little Fishies ATL5415W 6-Piece Plastic Hose Clamp Set, 1/2-Inch https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00025674Q/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

They're easily removed once the brew day is complete. I think I'll be happy with these.
 
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brausupply said:
I throttle the pump from the ball valve of the kettle. No problems whatsoever. I haven't had any cavitation from these pumps as they don't pull so hard like a chugger would.
Click to expand...

I did the same thing when I was tinkering around the other day. My engineering side was screaming "NOOOOO!", but it was with cold water so there was plenty of NPSHa and the risk for cavitation was slim to none. It seemed to work, but made me nervous.
 
NTexBrewer said:
If the pump is DC could you not wire a rheostat to the pump. Is a DC pump like a DC computer fan? It would be like the homemade stirplate and a DC fan? At the same time wire a switch and you can turn the pump on and off with the switch and regulate the flow with the rheostat. Or you get a universal AC/DC wall wart that allows you to chose different voltage.

I'm a Civil Engineer by trade so I'm just throwing something out that maybe someone with more knowledge can confirm or deny!!
Click to expand...

This makes sense, but I'm a chemical engineer and past experiences tell me that electricity doesn't like me.

I wonder if something like this would work...

Lutron TT-300H-WH Electronics Plug-In Lamp Dimmer, White https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000BYEF6/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
 
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Those dimmers work great on my lamps, but if you are plugging your wall wart into one of these, you just throttle down the AC current to the converter. My guess is if you feed 90v to that converter, it will still put out 24v DC.

I think you need to plug the wart into the wall and put the rheostat/dimmer into the circuit after that.
 
RM-MN said:
I think you really want one of these instead.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_s...lator&sprefix=pulse+width+modulator,tools,214

The lamp dimmer may be something similar but it's hard to see inside that white plastic cover.

Rheostats work by inserting a variable resistance into the circuit. Pulse width modulators give full power but for a variable amount of time.
Click to expand...

Thanks RM-MN. Sparky type stuff is usually well beyond my comprehension, so please excuse what may be an ignorant question. If I were to use a pulse width modulator would I install it between the power supply plugged into the wall and the pump motor?

I think I need to brew with the system a few times to determine if something like this will be beneficial. Then again part of the fun is perpetually tinkering.
 
They both control the effective voltage that reaches the pump, but it seems the PWM does it in much "cooler" fashion. Still goes between the wart and the wort pump.
 
TexasWine said:
Thanks RM-MN. Sparky type stuff is usually well beyond my comprehension, so please excuse what may be an ignorant question. If I were to use a pulse width modulator would I install it between the power supply plugged into the wall and the pump motor?

I think I need to brew with the system a few times to determine if something like this will be beneficial. Then again part of the fun is perpetually tinkering.
Click to expand...

Hmm..
I agree. DC motor speed controllers are correct for the application if you did feel the need. Again, I just use the ball valve and it hasn't cavitated even once. You could just install another ball valve on the outflow of the pump to satisfy?

I have another question for you all. Any excess foaming during the mash? And if you have experienced foaming, do any of you have any theories on this?
 
I have not noticed any foaming during the mash, but I have kept the lid on most of the time, so I suppose foam could have come and gone.

For my second cook, about two weeks ago, I saw what to my limited experience was the mother of all cold breaks, but I don't see how that could be anything other than a good thing. If I get both of the breaks like that on a regular basis, I gotta think clarity is going to come along very quickly. My first batch was clearly clearer (sorry, couldn't resist) than my prior efforts with pots on the stove, so I am sure this is going to happen.
 
Questions for you owners, especially the mini system-
Any blockage when using the kettle tub screen? Do you think it's really needed?
Has anyone compared the probe temp reading with the actual mash body temp? Are they the same?
Thanks!
 
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I've had plenty of trub on my screen. Not nearly enough to stop the flow of wort, but plenty to make me think the screen is necessary.

It strikes me as unlikely that the probe and mash body temp would be the same. The key thing is that the probe provide consistent and repeatable results. If it consistently says 156 when the mash is consistently 152, you can simply apply a -4 degree adjustment to all temps via the controller.
 
I think the kettle screen is definitely necessary. While I don't get a lot of trub, the screen is almost always covered. Is never been blocked but there's enough of a coating where I wouldn't want to drain without it there.

As for the foamy mash, were you using wheat at all? I've only gotten foam during my one wheat brew. I've done an American ale and Porter with no foam at all.
 
I may need to take back what I said about not having foaming, and the mother of all cold breaks.

My "cold break" looks like what this guy got:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=302543

The comments that follow are not helpful, because he said it happened as a cold break and they all wanted to talk about hot breaks.

Anyway, I recycled my wort through my plate chiller for about ten minutes or so following the boil, and that was what it looked like when I took the lid off of my pot when the temp got down to about 70F or thereabouts. I am not real sure anymore if it is a cold break or something else.
 
For those of you who have either the mini or another system, what are you setting your mill gap at when you crush? Hoping to avoid compacting the bed and having a BIAB "stuck sparge".
 
As far as foaming goes, I did get a lot of foaming on the one batch I've done with the system. It was about 25% wheat though so maybe that was why, but it did start overflowing from the pot.

I typically mill my grain pretty fine. I have a corona mill and usually tighten the gap as tightly as I can and then back off about 1/2 turn.
 
TexasWine said:
Good to know. Happen to have a picture of the crushed grain?
Click to expand...

I don't but I'd say something along the lines of this:

grains.png
 
This is not my photo, but my foam looked like this on the cold break. It happened while I was chilling the wort, so I assume it is a cold break, even though I don't think this is how a cold break should look.

cold_break_.jpg
 
Acarter5251, is there any chance you recirculated a lot of air along with your wort? The pump is pretty quiet, so long as it moves only wort and not wort plus air. If it is loud, that may be the cause.
 
I'm out of town but I'll try and find out my boil off #'s. Off the top of my head I think around 1.8L per hour
 
1.8L seems about right. I've been using .5 of a gallon in my water calculations and its been accurate after my last few brews.
 
Morning you fine folks! Just wanted to see how everyone's Brau Supply systems are treating them. Any lessons learned or new ideas? I had some technical issues with my controller, but Steven, as always, has solved all my problems.

The little clamps solved the leaks I had at the hose+QD connections. I determined that a plate chiller was not my cup of tea and have swapped to an IC. Still haven't used the IC though.

I've found hop stands are a cinch with this system. They'll become a more frequent thing for me.

Also, for 5 gallon batches I've found that I can run the pump at about half throttle before running into issues surf over flowing the kettle, pumping the bottom sump liquid to the top of the grain bed.

That's about it. Would love to hear what you all have learned.
 
I have a batch carbing now, but have had major issues with the controller for my fermentation chamber, so I've had to put off brewing for longer than I'd like. Meanwhile, Steven has sent me a replacement probe for my Mini, but I've not yet had a chance to use it and to confirm the problem was there and not in the box. With my FC controller, it was definitely the box. With the Mini, I was able to do pretty well without it for one brew, but it sure cut down on the automation element.

I tried doing a hopstand without putting the hops in a mesh bag and wound up clogging my bazooka screen. I think that will be the last time for awhile that I don't use a hop-bag. At least while I am pitching tons of hops into the boil or hopstand.

I am kinda split on the plate chiller. We have pretty cold water in the wintertime, so it worked really well then. It took wort temps from the boil to the 60s in about ten minutes. With temps in the 80s, my last brew was more trouble, and I wound up refrigerating and pitching the yeast the next day. I've bought a second pump from Steven and want to drop one pump into an ice bath while the other pump recirculates the wort. Probably a bit Rube Goldberg-y, but hey.

All I know for sure is that this last batch smelled and tasted spectacular when it came time to bottle. I am going to give them a full two weeks to carb up, then refrigerate for a whole week before drinking, but I am really not going to enjoy the wait; especially not with nothing in the pipeline and no chance of another boil before September.
 
greetings folks!

i have had a little more free time in recents weeks than usual, so i've brewed a half dozen batches on the mini in short order =)

i'll have to get some pictures back onto my mobile devices, and then i'll post some ways i've extended my system in the coming days ...

cheers!
 
been busily brewing on my mini these past months, let me gather some pics back onto my iPad and i'll post some conclusions i've drawn, share some ways i've extended the build, and maybe i can ask some ?'s i have on partial mashing to eek out the occasional five gallon batch (i have the 24qt, 120v 2k element version) ...

cheers!
 
whovous said:
I have a batch carbing now, but have had major issues with the controller for my fermentation chamber, so I've had to put off brewing for longer than I'd like. Meanwhile, Steven has sent me a replacement probe for my Mini, but I've not yet had a chance to use it and to confirm the problem was there and not in the box. With my FC controller, it was definitely the box. With the Mini, I was able to do pretty well without it for one brew, but it sure cut down on the automation element.

I tried doing a hopstand without putting the hops in a mesh bag and wound up clogging my bazooka screen. I think that will be the last time for awhile that I don't use a hop-bag. At least while I am pitching tons of hops into the boil or hopstand.

I am kinda split on the plate chiller. We have pretty cold water in the wintertime, so it worked really well then. It took wort temps from the boil to the 60s in about ten minutes. With temps in the 80s, my last brew was more trouble, and I wound up refrigerating and pitching the yeast the next day. I've bought a second pump from Steven and want to drop one pump into an ice bath while the other pump recirculates the wort. Probably a bit Rube Goldberg-y, but hey.

All I know for sure is that this last batch smelled and tasted spectacular when it came time to bottle. I am going to give them a full two weeks to carb up, then refrigerate for a whole week before drinking, but I am really not going to enjoy the wait; especially not with nothing in the pipeline and no chance of another boil before September.
Click to expand...

Thanks for chiming in. I too have really hot ground water. I simply chill as far as I can, stick it in the fermentation fridge and let it coast down to pitch temps. I used to do no chill, so it doesn't concern me one iota to do this. The only reason I chill now is because I was having a hard time predicting my hop utilization and sometimes getting beers that were hoppier than I wanted. So now, as long as the temp is low enough to stop extracting bitterness from the hops, I'm happy.

I use bags to contain my hops like you but just recently acquired an Abor Fab 6x14 hop screen. Looking forward to trying that next brew day.

Forgot to mention the other thing I've learned about my system. It makes a great sous vide cooker! Used it to make some steak this weekend and holy guacamole were they tasty!

Keep us posted on how your beer turns out.
 
The one time I used the plate chiller with really cold water, I got an absolutely monstrous cold side break, and I've gotta think that helps clear my brew. I'm not getting real intense hot side breaks, so I want to clear as much protein as possible when it is possible.

I've never heard of Arbor Fabricating before, but wow is their stuff purty. I take it you have a full size rig, because 6 x 14 seems awful big to me. Let us know how you like it, and maybe post a pic in action. Does it hang over the rim or in the center somehow? I may have to get one of these if I can figure out the size for my Mini.

Sous vide remains on my figure out the heck that works list.
 

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