Blichmann BrewEasy

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Pulled the trigger on the 10 gallon one except I am going to use an ebrewsupply.com controller and Camco element instead of the Boilcoil and Tower of power/control module.
 
At first I thought this thread was quickly turning into an uninformative Sh*t Show :smack: but you guys turned it around quite nicely. The minor temp adjustment makes sense to me now. Thanks for the feedback guys. :rockin:
 
Since this thread seems to be all things BrewEasy, I will add some information.

I ordered the 10G electric BrewEasy on November 7th. I still have not received the product and there is no sign of it showing up anytime soon. Customer service from Great Fermentations has been great and they indicate that Blichmann may be having some issues with manufacturing of the 20G BK.

I'm not complaining, I understand managing second and third tier suppliers can be challenging especially if you work with low-cost-county. Just a word of caution; if you order, plan to wait.
 
Anyone know if is possible to use a 10 gal BM on top instead of the 7.5 (for 5 gall batch size). I am thinking a lot about acquiring this system to go all electric. I already have a 10 gal G1 pot, so I was thinking I could get another 10 gal G2 elec kettle, get a false bottom for my 10 gal G1 pot, and build my own controller. Using a 10 gal instead of 7.5 would give me more mash tun capacity (for bigger beers), and of course use equipment that I already have.
 
@zentropy the ring that allows the 7.5gal to sit on top of the 10 gal kettle "safely" is not designed this way. The other obstacle is the drain tube. Is is bent in such a way that putting it on a 10 gallon pot will not allow it to fit correctly through the ring.
 
Does anyone have the full Tower stand? (with the flow meter and sample port)
Hows the accuracy? Seems to be 50% useful and 50% cosmetically cool.
 
I have the full tower of power with flow meter. It was challenging to attach my thermonater wort chiller on the tower. Not sure if there is an optional bracket or not. I love that I don't have to bend over the shorter option. It does take up a lot of vertical space if that is a deal breaker for you.
 
avmech said:
Since this thread seems to be all things BrewEasy, I will add some information.

I ordered the 10G electric BrewEasy on November 7th. I still have not received the product and there is no sign of it showing up anytime soon. Customer service from Great Fermentations has been great and they indicate that Blichmann may be having some issues with manufacturing of the 20G BK.

I'm not complaining, I understand managing second and third tier suppliers can be challenging especially if you work with low-cost-county. Just a word of caution; if you order, plan to wait.
Click to expand...

Oh man, that sucks. I ordered the 10 gal on the 22nd. I was hoping to be brewing on it by the end of December. Fingers crossed...
 
joeman said:
I have the full tower of power with flow meter. It was challenging to attach my thermonater wort chiller on the tower. Not sure if there is an optional bracket or not. I love that I don't have to bend over the shorter option. It does take up a lot of vertical space if that is a deal breaker for you.
Click to expand...

I also have the full tower. I am curious how you mounted the Therminator? Could you post a pic? I tried U bolts and finally gave up. I could not get them the correct size to mount it how I wanted. Also it would have made removing it to dry a huge PITA. I ended up buying a $12 step stool from Home Depot and just mounting it to that. I used stainless wingnuts to mount it to the bracket that it came with. I run PBW then Starsan through it with a pump. After I just take it off the stool and put the holes side down to drain as per the manual.

With the actual use of the tower, I just have one brew on it. It worked great. The sample port was used for my refractometer samples. The two way valve is amazing for going from re circulation to plate chiller to fermenter. I did not use the flow alarm as the BrewEasy does the flow speed for me, I just left the tower valve full open.

Here is my set up from Brew Day a week ago.

Here is the link to my review of the system as well.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/blichmann-10-gallon-breweasy-questions-505547/

2014-11-25 16.46.33.jpg
 
Yeah, I was concerned also about having the therminator above the electrical cord on the bottom of the tower. Not sure if that is water proof or not. In the end I decided that I did not want to find out! Stool works great for me and keeps the possibility of leaking hoses away from the expensive electronic stuff.
 
Thank you MC! I'll do that when I get home tonight. I never even paid attention to the add-ons tab/link before....obviously.
 
the_mc said:
In BeerSmith click add-ons:

Then Click Add

Then scroll to find BrewEasy and click Install Add-ons
Click to expand...

Excellent tip, thanks. I'm putting together sort of a DIY Breweasy and I'd like to see how some of my recipes translate.
 
the_mc said:
Just and FYI that Beersmith now has the BrewEasy 5,10,20 Gallon equipment profiles. You can get it through the Add-Ons
Click to expand...

What mash profile would you use? BIAB? Single/Double Infusion? Temperature?
Or can we expect Beer Smith to come out with Specialized mash profiles for the Brew easy. Or does it even matter?
 
RyanKC said:
What mash profile would you use? BIAB? Single/Double Infusion? Temperature?
Or can we expect Beer Smith to come out with Specialized mash profiles for the Brew easy. Or does it even matter?
Click to expand...

Hopefully one of the other BrewEasy pros will chime in since mine is only on order :ban: but before I did 3 vessel brewing, I was a BIAB'er. The BIAB mash profile makes the most sense to me since you are using a full volume of water.
 
the_mc said:
Hopefully one of the other BrewEasy pros will chime in since mine is only on order :ban: but before I did 3 vessel brewing, I was a BIAB'er. The BIAB mash profile makes the most sense to me since you are using a full volume of water.
Click to expand...

You would think BIAB profile would be the one, but i've ran into a problem with it. I've been messing around with a sample recipe using the five gallon brew easy profile on beer smith. The recipe calls for 16 pounds of grain. The 5 gallon set up has a 7.5 gallon mash tun, using the BIAB mash profile, beer smith says i need a mash tun volume of 9.5 gallons.
The guys at Great Fermentations told me the 7.5 gallon mash tun will fit around 17 pounds of grain max.
Take it for what its worth. i'm by no means a seasoned brewer. But it's something i just noticed.
 
RyanKC said:
You would think BIAB profile would be the one, but i've ran into a problem with it. I've been messing around with a sample recipe using the five gallon brew easy profile on beer smith. The recipe calls for 16 pounds of grain. The 5 gallon set up has a 7.5 gallon mash tun, using the BIAB mash profile, beer smith says i need a mash tun volume of 9.5 gallons.
The guys at Great Fermentations told me the 7.5 gallon mash tun will fit around 17 pounds of grain max.
Take it for what its worth. i'm by no means a seasoned brewer. But it's something i just noticed.
Click to expand...


Well from my understanding is you put half the total water in the MT and the other half in the BK so you would never have the full volume in the MT at any given time so the MT would not need to be 9.5 gallons.
 
Yeah I get that. It would just be nice to have a mash profile to go along with the equipment profile.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
I understand there's going to be a wait due to shipping and such but im having a hard time finding the 10gallon full tower 240v setup online. Where should I be looking? Great Ferm, high grav and more beer all have just the LTE tower.
 
avmech said:
Since this thread seems to be all things BrewEasy, I will add some information.

I ordered the 10G electric BrewEasy on November 7th. I still have not received the product and there is no sign of it showing up anytime soon. Customer service from Great Fermentations has been great and they indicate that Blichmann may be having some issues with manufacturing of the 20G BK.

I'm not complaining, I understand managing second and third tier suppliers can be challenging especially if you work with low-cost-county. Just a word of caution; if you order, plan to wait.
Click to expand...

UPDATE:

Just got shipping notification yesterday that my order has shipped and will deliver on Friday. About a 5 week lead-time. Other people with open orders should start seeing shipping notifications.
 
I'm sold, I'll be ordering a gas system in the next few days. Thank you for taking the time to write up all of your observations, danam.
 
No problemo everybody :). My issue now, is that I brewed so much when I first got it that I need to drink it all now... Need to free up kegs!
 
Danam404 said:
Yeah that's basically what I was getting in my original post but with a lot more words. HOWEVER. This only seems to be necessary at the beginning of the mash. Once everything gets stabilized for a Few minutes, the controller does fine.

Like I said, the Breweasy works as advertised and will get reasonably acceptable efficiency by following the manual... But if you want to take the extra time and effort it can do much more. Same as everything else, the more you put in, the more you get out.
Click to expand...

I wonder if the gas setup would do a better job of stabilizing temperature in the mash. Probably not a big difference since we are talking steel here but one heat source is outside the mash and one is inside the mash.

Any first hand experience on accuracy of mash temp to ToP controler with gas?

Could be a good excuse for me to stay with gas and not worry about voltage :D
 
mrclean said:
I wonder if the gas setup would do a better job of stabilizing temperature in the mash. Probably not a big difference since we are talking steel here but one heat source is outside the mash and one is inside the mash.

Any first hand experience on accuracy of mash temp to ToP controler with gas?

Could be a good excuse for me to stay with gas and not worry about voltage :D
Click to expand...
I ordered the 10 gallon G1 system last week (I already had a G1 20 gallon kettle). I'll let you know once I do some test batches.
 
BAH! Blichmann shipped me a G2 kit instead of a G1, with a G1 mash tun on the same order. Sent an email to AIH to hopefully get it resolved soon.
 
I am also interested in the gas Brew easy. I am a little disappointed in how Blichmanns website says to just buy the parts that you need to go with what you already have. I have a top teir system with a G1 10g brew kettle. I have the pump, the chiller, and 2 burners. But by the time I figured out everything I needed to make the conversion, it was only about 250.00 less than if I just bought the whole BrewEasy system turnkey.
I am not really big on meeting numbers. I should get more involved with it, instead I make my homebrew to drink and share with friends. I do have questions on it though such as:
1. As time consuming as it is to use a 3 tiered system with cleaning and sanitization and just the overall time to brew, how much time have you actually cut down on your brew day. I can generally make 2 brews in a good 12 hour day. This is me doing everything from getting everything out to getting everything put up after the brew day.
2. Why is the majority of what I am seeing people use and/or purchase is the electric units? I am a plumber by trade, and know that recirculating liquid ( water ) through any system is much better to do through a gas fired method than electric.
3. How do you overcome stuck sparges on the recirc system. Is it truly a flow issue? Is it like any other stuck sparge that has to be fixed at the source.
4. And last, Is it worth converting. I have moved and am unable to use my old system. I love to brew, but have contemplated going back to my old ways of the rectangular cooler mash tun and doing everything on my Camp Chef camp stove.

Over all I have thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the posts on this subject. My wife pointed this out to me and suggested that i look into it. I havent stopped researching since 8am this morning. Any advice will be great. Keep posting. Thanks a bunch.Wlff
 
As long as you are hitting your temps why would propane as a heat source be better than a coil? I think some of these guys including myself are just trying to avoid an open flame indoors. Completely agree with your opinion of this thread... keep the feedback coming doods!!!
 
I got the gas 10g version and have loved it. It's being compared to my old method of extract and steeping grainsand with that comparison its 6 hours start to finish for me to make a full ten gallon batch with the Brew easy vs 3 hours to make a 5 gal extract batch.

In other words: it's the same time investment in gallons per hour as simple extract brewing in my experience.


Which, for all grain, and ten gallon batches seems awesome to me! I've had much more beer on hand since making the purchase and actually took 3rd place for a Vienna lager from my first batch in October. The best part about making ten gal at a time is that I've still got that lager on tap and its gloriously aged and clear as crystal
 
Only had one suck sparge and it was directly related to not using rice hulls in my opinion.

In the end I overcame it by changing out for a much slower flow orifice and had a harder time ramping temps
 
My 10 gallon electric system is here! :ban: I have to work today and tomorrow :mad: but I'm going to do a batch on Wednesday and another on Thursday. I'm planning on taking plenty of notes, pictures, and videos to share with everyone, since I wished there was more of this available before I made my purchase. Hopefully the additional input will help others in their decisions.

In the meantime, I'll be putting everything together, getting my starters going, and doing some tests with just water. Hoping to provide some info during that time as well. More to come very soon!

Also, if anyone has any specific questions or things they want to see from this system, please let me know. I'd be happy to take pictures, video, notes of any specifics that anyone might want to see. We'll learn together! I'm also considering having one of the batches be a 5 gallon batch to see how that goes on the 10 gallon system. If not, I'll certainly be doing a 5 gallon batch soon so I'll keep you posted.
 

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