I believe it actually goes to the reset position. You first have to flip it to off and then to the on position. At least that's how my breakers are.
Brew Boss Systems
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I believe it actually goes to the reset position. You first have to flip it to off and then to the on position. At least that's how my breakers are.
Oh yeah you are right. That is how most are. I did have some that went into the off position when tripped. That is what I was thinking of.
Does the breaker stay on then trip minutes later or does it not even stay on?
Is the breaker GFCI?
Could be a short in the circuit (which is odd if you haven't changed anything and have done a lot of batches) or a bad breaker.
DiegoBrewer
Member
I'm (sort of) glad to see that I'm not the only one with the Brew Boss Cofi system who are struggling with their efficiencies. I'm using the Beersmith 15 G Kettle, 5 G Batch default, but have been missing my SG's by a full percentage point. I brewed a Rye Pale last week, with the following grain bill:
10 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row)
2 lbs 12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L
1 lbs 8.0 oz Rye Malt
3.4 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)
14 Lb 7 total grain bill.
Expected SG = 6.6%, Measured at 5.6% even after a 90-minute boil.
The grain bill is actually 2 lbs more than an on-line recipe called for because my expected low efficiency.
I've heard of sparging over the grains while the basket is draining at the end of the mash, however, at the end of my 60 min, 154 degree mash, I heated the wort to 170, and then recirculated it for 15-minutes, so this would seem to be the same as sparging.
What do you guys think?
10 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row)
2 lbs 12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L
1 lbs 8.0 oz Rye Malt
3.4 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)
14 Lb 7 total grain bill.
Expected SG = 6.6%, Measured at 5.6% even after a 90-minute boil.
The grain bill is actually 2 lbs more than an on-line recipe called for because my expected low efficiency.
I've heard of sparging over the grains while the basket is draining at the end of the mash, however, at the end of my 60 min, 154 degree mash, I heated the wort to 170, and then recirculated it for 15-minutes, so this would seem to be the same as sparging.
What do you guys think?
When you say 6.6% and 5.6%, do you mean estimated OG of 1.066 and you got 1.056?
I'm guessing it is either your crush or your not stirring the grains enough.
Recirculating wort through the grain bed is not the same as sparging.
The idea with sparging is that after your initial runoff you rinse the grains again with plain water to get any remaining sugars. Wort is already saturated with sugars so you will not gain much, if any by running it through the grain bed again. One method for BIAB would be to reserve a gallon or so of your strike water before you mash-in. After your initial drain, gently pour the reserved strike water over the grains in the COFI to extract more sugars.
I'm also thinking it would be more helpful to express your gravity (SG) as Specific Gravity i.e. 1.055 instead of a percentage.
Increasing your grain bill is a common way to compensate for lower system efficiency, but 2.75 pounds of crystal seems to be a lot for the recipe you listed. You would normally compensate mostly with the base malt.
Initially I only had issues missing my OG with beers >1.065. Once I started doing a small pour-over sparge that issue was resolved. Yesterday I hit my target of 1.075, the first time I brewed this beer, without a sparge, I got 1.063.
Your recipe looks to be 1.065ish so you could be in a bit of grey area. As someone mentioned it could simply be your crush. Do you mill your own grain?
What's your water make-up/mash pH? That most likely would not account for -10 points by itself, but if it's off by too much it could aggravate the situation.
Edit: I didn't account for the fact that you added two extra pounds to the original recipe, so subtracting that, it looks more like a 1.055 beer. That should be totally doable without a sparge, I would definitely be looking at your crush in that case...
Your recipe looks to be 1.065ish so you could be in a bit of grey area. As someone mentioned it could simply be your crush. Do you mill your own grain?
What's your water make-up/mash pH? That most likely would not account for -10 points by itself, but if it's off by too much it could aggravate the situation.
Edit: I didn't account for the fact that you added two extra pounds to the original recipe, so subtracting that, it looks more like a 1.055 beer. That should be totally doable without a sparge, I would definitely be looking at your crush in that case...
As soon as I started crushing my own grains, my efficiency went up. Online stores and LHBS don't always have the best mill gaps. Most LHBS owners brew. They most likely crush the grains based on their own equipment. It may work for them but it won't work for everyone. Not their fault, just something homebrewers need to deal with. Best way to deal with it is to crush your own grains at the gap you need.
I'm going with crush as well.
I'm going with crush as well.
What are you guys crushing at? I've been going on the coarse side at .050 and have been lower than expected, even when I tried sparging with a gallon and a half. Wish there was enough room to get the top off/on of the COFI while it's in the kettle.
DiegoBrewer
Member
Merlinworks - sparging with clear water makes sense, along with compensating with base malt. I'll give a go next time.
Schumed
Well-Known Member
How much water are you starting with?
I'm set to .039".
There was some discussion in a mash re-circulation thread where people were trying .050" with the thought that it would allow for a higher volume/speed of re-circulation and good efficiency. IIRC there were mixed results for those that tried it.
Schumed
Well-Known Member
putting this in using my profile in brewersfriend.com for the brew boss cofi...at 70% efficiency
Showing the OG should be 1.068
My guess is you are using way too much water...make sure you are measuring accurately . Brewersfriend is telling my you should be using 7.81 gallons of water...are you using more than that...how are you measuring.
Second thing to look at is water chemistry...your water ph might be out of whack causing the issue too...
I don't think the crush makes that much of a difference with BIAB from my testing...unless its barely getting crush at all
Yeah, I'm going to tighten it to .035 - .039 for the next batch and see how that compares. That thread and a few others are what led me to try the wider gap as a starting point, but I haven't been happy with the results.
FWIW, I am recirculating with the valve(s) all the way open.
Crush for biab is no different. With a non recirculating biab you actually want a finer crush. With a recirculating biab you can use a normal crush. His crush was .05 which is a lot higher than a normal crush of .035.
More water than needed is a good thing to look at too.
Also try to open the valves about half way. I keep the kettle valve open and keep the pump valve half way.
Snicklefritz
Well-Known Member
My crush has been set to .040 since day one on the brew boss. Never had any issues with that
mcgimpkins
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I tried this for one brew, saw my efficiency go down to 60%. Started crushing again at .038 and my efficiency went back to 70% (no sparge).
Using these gloves, I can get the lid off the COFI while it is mashing without burning my hands. Are you trying to stir the grains in the COFI?
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Yep, wanting to stir after lowering the COFI, once or twice during the mash, and/or at mashout. I'll have to give it another shot next time I brew to see if I can get enough clearance for the latches. Admittedly, I didn't spend too much time working at it the last time...
DiegoBrewer
Member
About 9.5 gallons for mash, 8.75 at start of boil, 6.5 gallons after a 90-minute boil, 5.5 into the fermenter. I dialed back the boil to 209 degrees which gave a nice rolling boil without any foam.
DiegoBrewer
Member
I have a measuring stick with gallon markings that I gauged based upon adding water from a half-gallon measuring cup to the kettle. I added 2 teaspoons of 5.2 Mash stabilizer and it gave me about the right color to my testing strips. I started with 9.5 gallons at mash, 8.75 at boil, 6.5 after 90-minute boil and 5.5 into the fermenter.
mcgimpkins
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I lose about 0.5 of a gallon between trub and my pump/tubing/counterflow chiller, meaning that I only need 6 gallons at the end of the boil. Are you tipping your pot or using a pickup tube? Leaving a gallon of wort in your pot can hurt your efficiency.
I don't understand this, your Brew Boss should auto set your boil with a boil flag, you just have to adjust your PwrB to give you the intensity of the boil you want. I have mine set to 70% but it seems people set it somewhere between 60%-70%
What are you using to determine these volumes? Do you have Beersmith or use any of the online calculators?
Out of curiosity what is your boil-off rate @70%? I get close to 1.25 Gal/hr @55%.
I settled on 70% too, which results in about 2G/hr with the 20G kettle. Give or take depending on the weather.
mcgimpkins
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It boils-off at 1.5 Gal/hr. In addition at my altitude 4200' I cannot seem to get water or wort higher than 204 F before it starts boiling.
Schumed
Well-Known Member
9.5 is way too much water..WAY TOO MUCH!!! That is your problem
I've done dozens and dozens of batches on the 15 gallon cofi system now..the most I've every used for a 5.5 gallon batch is 8 gallons of water and that was for a 25lb grain bill. You need to adjust your equipment profile if you are using software..not sure where you are getting 9.5 gallons of water from...I would re-evaluate your measuring stick too.
Also 5.2 Mash Stabilizer doesn't actually do anything according to multiple reports. It was a product specifically designed for one brewery that was unique to their water source. when I tried it it just made my beer salty.
9.5 isn't all that much. If I remember correctly, beersmith had me using that much. I'll have to create the recipe again. This is also a 90 minute boil which can be a boil off of another .75 to 1 gallon
Schumed
Well-Known Member
From Darin on the Brew boss site
"We find that 8-9 lbs of grain absorbs about 1 gallon of water. We also lose about 1 gallon of water an hour during boiling." so for 90 minutes...9.5 - 1.5 (boil off) - 1 (mash absorption) = 7 gallons ...1.5 gallons too much which would explain the lower gravity. Still not sure how you are going from 9.5 - to 5.5 ...my guess is measurement is off.
mcgimpkins
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So I just ran the following though my Beersmith setup
10 lb Pale 2-Row
2.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L
1.5 lb Rye Malt
0.21 lb Chocolate Malt (350 SRM)
90 Minute Boil
In Beersmith, I came up with 9.25 Gallons with no sparge. This is for 70% efficiency and assuming that I am boiling off 1.5 Gallons per minute, and has 0.5 Gallons lost to Trub and Chiller. In addition I am showing an estimated OG of 1.064.
@DiegoBrewer, I haven't used Brewer's Friend, however it looks like it has an equipment profile on it. You can do a wet run, with just water, boil it for an hour to figure out what your boil off then measure how much you are leaving in your pot. That should help you get you get your equipment dialed in to exactly how much water you need.
10 lb Pale 2-Row
2.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L
1.5 lb Rye Malt
0.21 lb Chocolate Malt (350 SRM)
90 Minute Boil
In Beersmith, I came up with 9.25 Gallons with no sparge. This is for 70% efficiency and assuming that I am boiling off 1.5 Gallons per minute, and has 0.5 Gallons lost to Trub and Chiller. In addition I am showing an estimated OG of 1.064.
@DiegoBrewer, I haven't used Brewer's Friend, however it looks like it has an equipment profile on it. You can do a wet run, with just water, boil it for an hour to figure out what your boil off then measure how much you are leaving in your pot. That should help you get you get your equipment dialed in to exactly how much water you need.
1 gallon of water seems lower than average. I got close to 1.5 at 70% power. If he was full power he could boil off 2 an hour which would put him right at 5.5 using the rest of your calculation
Schumed
Well-Known Member
I agree with that but the gravity number should be there then
Schumed
Well-Known Member
I agree with your beersmith numbers that's what I get too...but in reality isn't right when I try it.
The profile could be wrong. If the boil off is entered as 2 but 1.25 was the actual boil off, that could cause the gravity to be off. Though I think he said he ended up with 5.5. Having the boil off higher in beersmith would give you more into the fermentor unless more was left in the kettle
mcgimpkins
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I'm not sure if I understand what you are saying. Are you talking about DiegoBrewer, or your own personal profile?
If reality isn't matching your beersmith numbers than something is off with your equipment profile.
This was my process for dialing in my system:
DiegoBrewer
Member
Double checked my water levels; they were correctly measured. Performed a 60-minute wet test and lost 1.7 gallons to a boil at 65% power, 209 degrees. Drained the kettle and 1.25 gallons were left in the pot below the outlet tube (level pot, no tipping).
Doing the math: 9.5 gal start - 0.75 gal pre-boil - 1.7 gal x 90 min/60min boil - 1.25 gal left in the pot = 4.95 gal into the fermenter. I remembered that I did tip the pot to get 5.5 gal into the fermenter, so the math appears to be in the ballpark.
Doing the math: 9.5 gal start - 0.75 gal pre-boil - 1.7 gal x 90 min/60min boil - 1.25 gal left in the pot = 4.95 gal into the fermenter. I remembered that I did tip the pot to get 5.5 gal into the fermenter, so the math appears to be in the ballpark.
How did you mill your grain?
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