Unboxing the Nano from CO Brewing

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Horseflesh said:
These systems need 30A, 4-wire outlets.

The outlet my electrician installed looks like this:

txEQwQl.png


However, I can't actually find a matching plug. I can only find pigtails--plugs with wires attached.

How did you guys do your electrical hookup? Did I get the wrong 4-wire receptacle, or is there a source of these dryer-style 4-wire plugs?
Click to expand...

You need a NEMA 14-30p. http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/331496822311?lpid=82&chn=ps&ul_noapp=true
 
Horseflesh said:
These systems need 30A, 4-wire outlets.

The outlet my electrician installed looks like this:

txEQwQl.png


However, I can't actually find a matching plug. I can only find pigtails--plugs with wires attached.

How did you guys do your electrical hookup? Did I get the wrong 4-wire receptacle, or is there a source of these dryer-style 4-wire plugs?
Click to expand...

I'm waiting for my system to come in and I have the same outlet. Does the system not ship with a plug? What are you doing for gfci protection? Thanks!
 
Tim at CBS said that there are different 4-wire outlets so these units don't come with a plug on the power cable.

My GFCI protection is at the breaker. I could have done a spa panel, but my electrician said the cheaper panel parts would be offset by the longer time to install, plus the panel is ugly... so I did breakers.
 
I'm supposed to have a tracking number tomorrow, whoo!

For those of you who have wired up a plug to your cable... I have a NEMA 14-30p plug ready to go. The plug has neutral, ground,and 2 hot lines.

nema14-30r.jpg


I am unclear on one thing, though. Are the two hot lines distinct? In other words, will my cable come with say red and black hot lines, and black goes specifically on one side--or does that not matter? As far as I can tell which hot line goes on which side does not matter but can anyone confirm?
 
Have any of you guys had any experience with the stainless steel hop filter from arbor fab or other similar places. I have the 20 gallon kettle and mostly do 5 gallon batches so I am worried the filters may not reach down far enough into the kettle to submerge all the hops. Especially for hoppy beers. I could get one of the longer ones but they are around 100 bucks which seems high. Bazooka screen didn't work so well because it got clogged and slowed the flow greatly. Any ideas would be welcome.
 
I use a hop spider I built from PVC and some bolts and a paint strainer...I have two sized strainers one for 10 gallon batches and one for 5. The 5 gallon is obviously longer than the other but I measured it so it would not touch the element when in use
 
Eamster said:
Have any of you guys had any experience with the stainless steel hop filter from arbor fab or other similar places. I have the 20 gallon kettle and mostly do 5 gallon batches so I am worried the filters may not reach down far enough into the kettle to submerge all the hops. Especially for hoppy beers. I could get one of the longer ones but they are around 100 bucks which seems high. Bazooka screen didn't work so well because it got clogged and slowed the flow greatly. Any ideas would be welcome.
Click to expand...



I use a hop spider I built from PVC and some bolts and a paint strainer...I have two sized strainers one for 10 gallon batches and one for 5. The 5 gallon is obviously longer than the other but I measured it so it would not touch the element when in use
 
That may be the route I go. Was always worried about it being right over the element but if I cut it just short that should work. Thanks for the tip.
 
Eamster said:
Have any of you guys had any experience with the stainless steel hop filter from arbor fab or other similar places. I have the 20 gallon kettle and mostly do 5 gallon batches so I am worried the filters may not reach down far enough into the kettle to submerge all the hops. Especially for hoppy beers. I could get one of the longer ones but they are around 100 bucks which seems high. Bazooka screen didn't work so well because it got clogged and slowed the flow greatly. Any ideas would be welcome.
Click to expand...


I am a serious fan of the NE style IPAs. I think I'm on my 6th or seventh Bach now and typically have 6 oz or more of hops in the kettle have never had an issue clogging my cfc with no filter. That's doing a 30 min whirlpool at the end.
 
The pellet hops are usually not a problem with no filter as I have a cfc as well but I also use some home grown whole hops and they easily clog the pump if there is no filter.
 
Horseflesh said:
I'm supposed to have a tracking number tomorrow, whoo!

For those of you who have wired up a plug to your cable... I have a NEMA 14-30p plug ready to go. The plug has neutral, ground,and 2 hot lines.

nema14-30r.jpg


I am unclear on one thing, though. Are the two hot lines distinct? In other words, will my cable come with say red and black hot lines, and black goes specifically on one side--or does that not matter? As far as I can tell which hot line goes on which side does not matter but can anyone confirm?
Click to expand...

It does not really matter. For a DIY panel you would want to be consistent. Convention is usually black for Hot1 and red for Hot2, as far as I know.
 
Eamster said:
The pellet hops are usually not a problem with no filter as I have a cfc as well but I also use some home grown whole hops and they easily clog the pump if there is no filter.
Click to expand...


I haven't tried whole hops yet in this system but that makes sense
 
Eamster said:
Have any of you guys had any experience with the stainless steel hop filter from arbor fab or other similar places. I have the 20 gallon kettle and mostly do 5 gallon batches so I am worried the filters may not reach down far enough into the kettle to submerge all the hops. Especially for hoppy beers. I could get one of the longer ones but they are around 100 bucks which seems high. Bazooka screen didn't work so well because it got clogged and slowed the flow greatly. Any ideas would be welcome.
Click to expand...

I bought a hop filter from Utah Biodiesel and it seems to work fine with 5 gallon batches. The one odd thing is the bubbles from the boil will be thrown off and different so you have to move the filter around a bit or turn down the power. But I might switch to a IC from Jaded in which case the filter won't be needed.
 
My system (being delivered today!!) has the whirlpool port. If I whirlpool, do I need a hop spider at all? Or will the whirlpool neatly pile up the trub in the middle?

Never had proper whirlpool gear before, not sure what to expect. I do like the idea of lifting out a lot of the hop pellet goop, though.
 
Horseflesh said:
My system (being delivered today!!) has the whirlpool port. If I whirlpool, do I need a hop spider at all? Or will the whirlpool neatly pile up the trub in the middle?

Never had proper whirlpool gear before, not sure what to expect. I do like the idea of lifting out a lot of the hop pellet goop, though.
Click to expand...

I actually whirpool with the recirc arm, it does pile the trub up but I have no problem just using the spider as extra trub removing etc. I also like to get as much of the fluid out as I can so I tip the kettle until the trub that has gathered get to the port then I shut down so the less trub I have the better.
 
I brewed a 5 gallon batch Sat morning, one thing I discovered, the whirlpool arm is useless for that... it doesn't reach down far enough :(
 
Horseflesh said:
My system (being delivered today!!) has the whirlpool port. If I whirlpool, do I need a hop spider at all? Or will the whirlpool neatly pile up the trub in the middle?

Never had proper whirlpool gear before, not sure what to expect. I do like the idea of lifting out a lot of the hop pellet goop, though.
Click to expand...

It depends. The only reason to fear the hop debris is if you use a plate chiller. I didn't find the whirlpool to be all that strong. Debris would be in the middle but as you get near the end it is pulled in. But that's to be expected I think. It just irked me to leave so much in the kettle so I began to look into other options. But having all those hops contained is awesome for clean up. I can easily dump them in a bag with my grains. I have dogs and I'm paranoid about dumping hops in the lawn where they might find them.
 
Well, my system arrived today! (I had a false alarm about an early delivery last week... UPS just goofed.)

Unfortunately I am missing the control panel bracket. Worse than that, my 240V control panel has one 120V power cable coming out of it, and no 240V power cable. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, I was expecting one 240V 4-wire cable, right? I just sent them pictures and asked for help.

I am sure they'll fix me up but maybe I won't be breaking the system in this weekend as I had hoped! Bummer. The stuff sure looks nice though. Glad to be moving away from the Igloo method.

YUbhasd.jpg
 
CBS is sending me parts today, nice fast support from Jacob.

But I'm confused, he said I need a 120V and a 240V? Do any of you 240V users also have a 120V power cable?

EDIT TO ADD: All is well. Here's the story. The control panels with the touchscreen are UL listed, and UL does not allow the 120V tap. The Nano Home units without the touchscreen are not UL listed, and so can all be powered from the single 4-wire 240V circuit.

Not the end of the world, but it may mean I need a 120V extension cord I did not expect.
 
what chillers are you guys using? I used to have a Hydra IC and loved it. Ended up getting rid of it when I got my CO system because i didn't think i could have it resting on the element. It didn't occur to me at the time that I could use the hoist to suspend it in the wort. I have regretted it big time. I switched to a counter flow chiller which works ok, but i hate the volume loss and cleaning is a pain. The simplicity of an immersion chiller just can't be beat. Anyone using any other immersion chillers that work well..or other recommendations?

I'd love to get a Hydra again, but i dont think SWMBO will go for it.
 
I'm using a very basic copper IC from the homebrew store. It takes about 30 minutes to hit pitch temperature. It is not awesome, but it'll do for now.

If mine rests on the element, it tips and sticks partially out of the wort, at least in my 5 gallon batches. So, I made feet out of copper wire so it will sit level on the bottom of the kettle. Ugly, but it works.

If you go back to the Hydra check out their King Cobra. I just noticed it the other day. Looks like it's shaped better for smaller batches in bigger kettles.... more squat and wide.

http://jadedbrewing.com/products/the-king-cobra
 
Horseflesh said:
My system (being delivered today!!) has the whirlpool port. If I whirlpool, do I need a hop spider at all? Or will the whirlpool neatly pile up the trub in the middle?

Never had proper whirlpool gear before, not sure what to expect. I do like the idea of lifting out a lot of the hop pellet goop, though.
Click to expand...

I use one, with the plate chiller you absolutely need one.

sgraham602 said:
what chillers are you guys using? I used to have a Hydra IC and loved it. Ended up getting rid of it when I got my CO system because i didn't think i could have it resting on the element. It didn't occur to me at the time that I could use the hoist to suspend it in the wort. I have regretted it big time. I switched to a counter flow chiller which works ok, but i hate the volume loss and cleaning is a pain. The simplicity of an immersion chiller just can't be beat. Anyone using any other immersion chillers that work well..or other recommendations?

I'd love to get a Hydra again, but i dont think SWMBO will go for it.
Click to expand...

I use a 30 plate chiller from duda diesel. Works ok, when it doesn't plug it chills extremely fast. 10 gallons down in roughly 15 min right now in Michigan.

For those interested here's a video doing a fairly large brain bill. This was the second brew of the day and quite a few beers in so excuse how fast I pour the grains in.

https://youtu.be/qnr9fvuBKqk
 
I'm using an immersion chiller and found that on my first run with the Nano, just dropping in pellets, I got a nice pile of hop trub in the middle of the kettle. That was a hefeweizen though, we'll see what happens with tonight's pale ale... not sure how much hop goop you can have before you need some sort of strainer.
 
I have an Exchillrator Maxx UV for my 1 bbl system I'll report back after I use it. I just have the pot and basket from CO Brewing. Sourced everything else from different places.
 
The numbers are in... 74.1% mash efficiency from batch 1, and 70.6% from tonight's run. First batch was milled once, second batch went through twice. It's the LHBS mill though and I'm not sure what the gap is. Also, totally different mashes and malts, so it isn't apples to apples. Still, I'd like those numbers higher.

You guys with good efficiency, how do you mill? That seems like a good place to start.
 
I just ordered the 25 gallon "Down Under". Looks like a ton of great info on this thread. Looking forward to reading through it all.
 
Congrats @jahlinux!

Another question from me for more experienced electric brewers... Do you ever get light scorching or carmelization on your element? On my second batch I was conservative with pump speed, and had my boil maintained at 60% power. I still got a small brown spot on the element as seen in the picture.

I scraped some off and tasted it, and didn't notice any burnt flavors. The whole brown spot also came off pretty easily when I cleaned the element. So, is this typical, or trouble?

IqinnMg.png


In other news, I was able to nail my volumes on the 20 gal Nano Home with these Beersmith settings.

BIAB Grain Absorption: 0.4960 fl oz/oz (and I squeezed the mash with the back of a big spoon while it dripped dry, but did not go nuts with trying to get every drop.)

Boil-off: 1.35 gal/hr when cruising at 60% power

Loss to kettle: 0.25 gal (and this was with almost 6 oz of hop pellet sludge)

My efficiency is not great though, 70-74% so far.
 
Horseflesh said:
Thank you for the reassurance!
Click to expand...

I hate smokey beers but my first one got ruined because I scorched it so bad. Would've been passable as a smoked stout though honestly. It was scorched so bad I had to clean it with muratic acid and clr.

I usually just soak it in pbw,heat it up to 180, and let it sit with the lid on over night. Cleans right up in the morning the next day.
 
I scorched my first batch, but just barely. You can taste if when it warms, but it's subtle. There was about 1 square inch of pure black on the element and it took a PBR soak and some scraping to remove it. Batch 2, pictured above, seemed fine and was pretty easy to clean. Whew!
 

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