Unboxing the Nano from CO Brewing

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cyclonebeer said:
Are there any other things that I am missing that could help with my issue(s)?

Feel free to stir your mash. I've thought a lot about re-circulation and what the benefits are. I think (and feel free to disagree) that one of the primary benefits of re-circulation is keeping a constant mash temp. Consider this. If your grain is at mash temp, and you're surrounding that grain bed with an envelope of constant temp wort, there is no place for heat to escape. Thats a good thing. Any mechanical "sweeping" of sugars from the grains that you get from re-circulation is a bonus - buts lets face it. Re-circulating wort is going to take the path of least resistance, whether its through the side walls of an all mesh basket or through channels in the grain bed itself. If the grain bed were fluidized, re-circulation would work marvelously, but its not. Stick a spoon in your mash and you can feel that it's dense at the bottom. I don't think that any of us should rely solely re-circulation to mechanically liberate sugars from the grain. I really think that regular stirring of the mash does the trick.
For big grain bills, I would absolutely hold back some water for a sparge. Mashing thicker and sparging should help you gain some gravity points.
The SS Brewtech manifold looks like a slick tool. I think its benefit is that it probably creates more channels in the grain bed, and that's not all bad. I'm sure that it helps with the flow through a solid side basket.
Finally, mill gap is going to be directly related to your basket type. I just checked mine with a feeler gauge and I'm set at .025". From what I've been seeing on this thread, I would not recommend that for a solid side basket.
Final shout out to jabba11. My daughter graduated from KSU. What a neat town you live in. Sorry to hear about Grandpa Bill.
Click to expand...

AWESOME and very EMAW!. Bill Snyder kicks cancers ass then sends it a nice letter. Anyhow I have taken to doing a one gallon rinse at the end of my mash. Seems to help a little bit
 
heres a couple of pics of my setup for adding recirc to under the basket. The 2x4 I mounted two light mounting brackets on and made them adjustable up and down using the nuts as adjusters. I will do something more "fancy" later if this works for me. I added a valve in between the pump and the kettle as well so if thing go awry I can disconnect it all. I had most of this stuff already and pieced it together. Crazy how stuff piles up. I tested the flow and was ok with it. It gave me the opportunity to "feel" what was coming out where. I'm brewing on Friday so Ill report back with how this went. I'm not brewing a wheat but a helles so it wont be the best test but it should provide me with some feed back

edit: I didn't like the 90 degree bend down and have removed it. I will need to build onto my box stand later to get the height required now. As it is I just stacked some sturdy stuff and used the 2x4/clamps to adjust the height for brew day tommorrow

20170426_115725.jpg


20170426_115735.jpg
 
Heres a pic with the Helles brewing. this is 7 gallon batch FWIW. You can see I took the elbow out. Seems to be working nicely of course wont be able to see whats happening under the basket till later..

20170428_084829.jpg
 
So what do you think the benefit is recirculating under the basket? Just to keep wort moving over the element so you don't scorch? Or is it something beyond that? Wondering if it would provide any help to my propane system as scorching isn't a worry...but the benefit doesn't immediately jump out at me.
 
zman_ said:
So what do you think the benefit is recirculating under the basket? Just to keep wort moving over the element so you don't scorch? Or is it something beyond that? Wondering if it would provide any help to my propane system as scorching isn't a worry...but the benefit doesn't immediately jump out at me.
Click to expand...

yes that was the "attempt". I just finished brewing. id say it didn't have much affect in that regard. Maybe some. My element still had crap all over it but minimal if no scorching. I may try running it wide open all the time next batch. I throttled it a little this time as I wanted to make sure there was good flow through the mash. Here were some benefits. 1. not sure why but my efficiency was much higher today? Coincidence maybe, maybe I got something wrong somewhere. It came out at 84%. Now this was a 7 gallon batch too. Normally I do 10 gallons but this was a one off Helles. The whirlpool did what a whirpool does..Nice pile of junk in the middle when I drained to my fermenter. pumping to the fermenter was a simple flick of a lever instead of a disconnection and reset etc. Even pumped while whirl pooling. I have an IC (hydra). It made the cooling much faster even compared to when I would "whirlpool with the old recirc arm.
Cons: Sticks way out from the kettle and so I have to "work around " it all. Not awful but just something to contend with. Lose your sight glass...the biggest thing I used the sightglasss for was to make sure my levels weren't too low and so seeing into the kettle was kind of a pain.'

overall I don't think I'm gonna give up on this yet. I kind of liked all the control and the whirlpool is also nice. I may see if CBS will add another TC to my kettle if I send it to them etc. That may too expensive to want done and would depend on how long it would take. Honestly.. I gotta keep the beer flowing. Next brew day will probably be a more "standard one" for me and so Ill see how much this helps etc. I will say that flow rate oout of my ss brewtech manifold didn't seem to suffer much at all even with the whirpool going almost full blast
 
I have the sight glass and the whirlpool fitting. Can't imagine life without the whirlpool and I guess I would trade if I had to! I still use the sight glass since I have it, though.

The sight glass has one big problem which is that it reads differently depending on how the unit is leveled. My rig does not stay in one place, I haul it into a corner for storage and then out to the floor for brew day. So, the glass can't be calibrated once and left alone, unless I hit the exact same spot on the floor every time.

I figured out a way to still get some use out of it, though... I use a dry erase marker to put temporary hash marks on the sight glass as I fill the kettle.

For example if my recipe calls for 8.5 gallons total, I add 4 gallons to the kettle and mark that level on the sight glass. (4 gallons is about as low as the glass will read.) Then I add 4.5 more gallons, one gallon at a time, each with a hash mark. Now, after the mash and the boil the sight glass will tell me how much liquid is left, which is all I need to know. It isn't perfectly accurate, but I find that it is good 'nuff.
 
Find a local welder that can do stainless. I needed another fitting on my lid.
I brought the ferrule and the lid to a local welder and I think charged me $40 to do it. A lot cheaper than shipping a kettle back and forth.

jabba11 said:
yes that was the "attempt". I just finished brewing. id say it didn't have much affect in that regard. Maybe some. My element still had crap all over it but minimal if no scorching. I may try running it wide open all the time next batch. I throttled it a little this time as I wanted to make sure there was good flow through the mash. Here were some benefits. 1. not sure why but my efficiency was much higher today? Coincidence maybe, maybe I got something wrong somewhere. It came out at 84%. Now this was a 7 gallon batch too. Normally I do 10 gallons but this was a one off Helles. The whirlpool did what a whirpool does..Nice pile of junk in the middle when I drained to my fermenter. pumping to the fermenter was a simple flick of a lever instead of a disconnection and reset etc. Even pumped while whirl pooling. I have an IC (hydra). It made the cooling much faster even compared to when I would "whirlpool with the old recirc arm.
Cons: Sticks way out from the kettle and so I have to "work around " it all. Not awful but just something to contend with. Lose your sight glass...the biggest thing I used the sightglasss for was to make sure my levels weren't too low and so seeing into the kettle was kind of a pain.'

overall I don't think I'm gonna give up on this yet. I kind of liked all the control and the whirlpool is also nice. I may see if CBS will add another TC to my kettle if I send it to them etc. That may too expensive to want done and would depend on how long it would take. Honestly.. I gotta keep the beer flowing. Next brew day will probably be a more "standard one" for me and so Ill see how much this helps etc. I will say that flow rate oout of my ss brewtech manifold didn't seem to suffer much at all even with the whirpool going almost full blast
Click to expand...
 
I considered that. Ill ask around. Not to keen on some jimmy joe fiddling with my expensive pot and ruining it or making bad welds. I will do that first though
 
A welding shop typically welds everything even different types of metal to each other. If you aren't out in the boonies you should find someone able to do sanitary welds. They seem to be an honest bunch I had to ask 3 different shops before a welder said yes he does stainless sanitary welds.
 
sometimes it just depends what part of the country you live in. I mean when I lived in TX in oilfield country...pretty much everyone could weld anything to anything...round here not so much
 
Sunday I fired up the Nano Home for another batch of Yooper's oatmeal stout. Brew day was pretty uneventful with 2 small exceptions. One, I forgot to do the CBS-recommended 113F rest to make flaked oats less gummy. Two, I ended up half a gallon short pre-boil, possibly due to #1. My mash efficiency was also lower than expected despite rinsing with the missing half-gallon.

Still trying to get the numbers dialed in on this system... It does seem very sensitive to mash thickness. In this case I was using 8.35 gal water to 12.1 lb grain.

A thick mash means lower efficiency, but a thin mash means you might have to boil off a lot of water, which has its own issues. I am curious how you other 5 gallon guys are calculating your water volumes. I thought I had a BeerSmith "BIAB Grain Absorbtion" value that worked for me but I'm coming in low now. I don't really care what my efficiency is, as long as I can make it consistent. (This batch was 73% I think; last batch was 93% because I goofed up there too and somehow got too much water in, making the mash really fluid.)

This time I remembered to play with my thermal camera, so here are some pictures. My thermal camera is cheap and lame--do not trust any temperatures in the photos! However, you can evaluate relative temperatures between two areas provided that they are the same material.

Kettle image, useless but fun.
MGsqmbj.jpg


Top of the mash. The bright spot is an area where liquid wort has pooled. Water reads hotter than wet grain at the same temperature so this isn't apples to apples.
oOb94ZK.jpg


Here's a little video clip of the same area: https://gfycat.com/HollowYellowAdeliepenguin

When probing the grain bed with my Thermapen I saw temperatures between 156F (target temp, deep in the grain bed near the under-basket liquid) and 149F (farthest away from the recirc return, top of the grain bed). When I stirred the mash, I could hear the element kick on, as the cooler liquid got back into circulation. I'm convinced that a manifold like the Ss Brewtech model that some of you use is a good idea.

(Oh, my replacement element did not have a hot spot near the base, either.)
 
Of the things Ive done that were an improvement I believe the manifold was of most benefit fwiw. As far as water volumes I never do a 5 gallon batch. I do 7 or more but that mostly because I need seven or so in the fermenter for the coil inside to be effective at keeping temp. I usually just bottle the last 2 gallons or so if I do a seven gallon batch. I haven't had any real difficulties in water volumes myself. yes sometimes its a little low it seems. I always keep a gallon aside anyway to sparge end of mash and I use that to. My OG has kinda been hit or miss depending on what I am brewing though. Last weekend for some reason my efficiency was MUCH higher than it has been and Im hoping it has something to do with recirc under the basket although Im not sure why that would increase it. I may just simply have put something in wrong. Ive been using beersmith for volumes.
 
Did a 15 gallon (14 in fermenter) batch yesterday, no issues at all. Everything went great. Next step is to work on getting my efficiency up. Whether it be running the recycle faster or finer crush on the grain it's pretty bad right now. Going to crush the next batch at .039 and see how it does.

63602764608342446973.jpeg
 
Looks good. Would you mind posting a few pics of the plumbing and pump. Is yours the 20 gallon? Just got the 15 gallon kettle and basket and am in the process of setting it up. Thanks!
 
Traz1986 said:
Looks good. Would you mind posting a few pics of the plumbing and pump. Is yours the 20 gallon? Just got the 15 gallon kettle and basket and am in the process of setting it up. Thanks!
Click to expand...

I can when I get out of work. Comes out of a pump into a T with a valve on each end. One valve goes to the bottom of the kettle, one to the top. Pump is fed by 1" inlet fittings and hose, hose to the bottom is 3/4" fittings/hose, and the one going to the mash manifold is 3/16" hose.
 
02RedWS6TA said:
I can when I get out of work. Comes out of a pump into a T with a valve on each end. One valve goes to the bottom of the kettle, one to the top. Pump is fed by 1" inlet fittings and hose, hose to the bottom is 3/4" fittings/hose, and the one going to the mash manifold is 3/16" hose.
Click to expand...

Thanks.
 
Does anyone use Brewer's Friend? Getting ready to brew my first batch using my 25gal "Down Under". Looking for help setting up my equipment profile.
 
jready said:
BTW just another plug for Tim. I emailed him about converting site glass into whirlpool over the weekend I asked him to check my order make sure I got what I needed. He responded Monday morning and updated my order with the pieces I had missed! Great service!
Click to expand...

Could you send a pic of the whirlpool attachment for the sight glass port. That port sits a little higher, so I'm guessing it makes a sharp bend downward? Thanks.
 
Traz1986 said:
Could you send a pic of the whirlpool attachment for the sight glass port. That port sits a little higher, so I'm guessing it makes a sharp bend downward? Thanks.
Click to expand...


Sure headed to a hokey game tonight but I will try to do it later or tomorrow.
 
Was looking at their 5 BBL system and it looks like a huge BIAB, am I off there? Pretty cool to be able to brew on that scale with such a simple method.
 
marjen said:
Was looking at their 5 BBL system and it looks like a huge BIAB, am I off there? Pretty cool to be able to brew on that scale with such a simple method.
Click to expand...

Yeah you got it, they are your BIAB scaled up to 5 or 10 BBL.

On their description they list "Integrated grain dump station". I've wondered how that works, as I have had to somewhat man-handle the basket when I have done 30+ lbs of grain. I would imagine it is easier than cleaning out a 10 BBL mash tun though.
 
Just a note here about something new with my setup. I purchased a dernord ULD ripple element for my system and am currently mashed in. I also bent the element slightly apart/open (I had seen this done with a friend of mines system). So far I will say that it seemed to take a bit longer to get to temp for some reason maybe the uld part but as an aside it seems to keep temp much better than did (not overshooting). Definitely longer to get to boil BUT the boil I'm getting is much better I think., It seems to be more centered and a larger "spot" where the boil roils. With the original element my boil was concentrated near where the element port was. Also today was the second day with recirculation under the basket during the mash. So far AGAIN today my efficiency was much higher than what I had been getting. Today was 86%! That's two times in a row it has been that high and I may be on to something in that regard. I also just slowed mu whole process down some today. I let the basket hang longer and I actually did a 170 degree 1 gallon sparge at the end. With regard to the sparge I may actually set up something to use my old sparge arm to run 1 gallon through it at the end every time. I know that slows things down some but not terribly and if it means a 5-10% bump in efficiency I have no problem doing it. Id run it through relatively quick in under 3 mins say. Today I also pumped through my hop spider whenever I added anything. I know people talk about utilization and so I figured pumping through it for a minute or two after every addition would help (see photo). Additionally the element seemed VERY clean compared to my old one and previous batch. I simply wiped it down and it was nice and shiny again no scrubbing. I suspect that the ULD DOES make a difference in scorching and build up etc. This batch did have 1 pound of flaked wheat in it.

20170519_132814.jpg


20170519_142141.jpg
 
Does the new element connect to the hot pod?
I'd bet the bump in efficiency has a lot to do with a slightly thicker mash and a small sparge, but I could be wrong.
Also, with a whirlpool port down at the bottom of the kettle, why not just dump hops in the kettle and ditch the spider? Couldn't you just cone up trub and hop debris by whirlpooling after temp knockdown? I have a spider just like yours, but rarely use it - unless I'm brewing a Pilsner or something lightly hopped that I want to keep "clean".
 
cyclonebeer said:
Does the new element connect to the hot pod?
I'd bet the bump in efficiency has a lot to do with a slightly thicker mash and a small sparge, but I could be wrong.
Also, with a whirlpool port down at the bottom of the kettle, why not just dump hops in the kettle and ditch the spider? Couldn't you just cone up trub and hop debris by whirlpooling after temp knockdown? I have a spider just like yours, but rarely use it - unless I'm brewing a Pilsner or something lightly hopped that I want to keep "clean".
Click to expand...

I don't know what a hot pod is but I simply replaced the element on the existing cord back into the metal grounding/protective housing. It IS plugged into my control panel if that's what you were getting at. I use the spider because I clean in place and its hella easier to do without a tun of junk in the bottom of the pot. This brew had 3 oz of pellets and 2 ounces of peels. I have always spared. Today was the first one I did heated though usually I just use a gallon I had pulled back. The bump in efficiency cant be attributed to the mash I dont think because its the same size grist and water volume I have used before only with an 8% bump in this case. It might be that the slight whirpool has a bit of a capillary action on the mash itself. That's a guess on my part but I can see how it might.
 
Transferred 10 gallons of my last batch to the Brite tank and kegged 2.5 gallons. Beer is getting better and better. No complaints on the system anymore, still working on my efficiency but I'll get there.

Brew budget is blown for this year but next up will be an RO system for the water.
 
I have been brewing a few more batches with my system, solid sides basket and ultimate sparge arm instead of whirlpooling. I now do get at least 75 - 80% brewhouse efficiency so i'm quite happy with that. The problem i had with recirculation got better when i started wet millig the grains - but I still have problem with higher gravity brews. I'm thinking the big problem (if one want solid sides) is that 400micron at bottom is to small for that, and i will probably out of curiosity order a basket with either 600 or 700 micron mesh at bottom. If i decide to do, then i'll report on how it works.
 
80% brewhouse efficiency? Wow. I get around 65-70% but I am still tuning. I'm also doing 5 gallon batches in the 20 gallon system which may not help.

Today was my first run with the Ss manifold. It does seem to be an improvement over the simple recirc arm. I got a mash efficiency of 78%, about as high as I normally do with frequent of stirring, while only poking at the mash a few times.

Now I think I understand why the holes are on the top of the manifold.

My first instinct was to push it down into the grain bed... Not a lot, just a half inch or so. I started this way and then poked around with my Thermapen after about 15 minutes. Near the manifold the temperature of the top of the bed was close to the desired mash temperature, but it was 5 degrees cooler when you tested away from the wort returns. (Of course, the deeper you measured, the hotter it got.)

Then I set the manifold on top of the bed, not tucked into the grain at all, and this seemed much better. The top of the grain bed was soon covered in wort. I got distracted and didn't take more temperature readings, but having the hot wort from the bottom of the kettle pooling over the whole bed seems much more likely to provide even heat. Presumably the wort filters down at about the same rate all over.

Hit all my numbers pretty well... finally getting this thing dialed in. Good brew day!
 
My first 10 gallon batch this weekend didn't go so well. It was the first time milling my own grain, with the gap set to about 0.04". It was a standard wheat beer, 10lbs pils and 10lbs wheat malt with 14.75 gallons of water. I have the 20 gallon system with hard sided basket and use the recirc arm with about 10" of silicone tubing on the end. I'm not sure if it was the crush of the grain or what, but the element scorched and after the brewday was over I noticed a big pile of what looked close to flour around the element.

Does that sound like too fine a crush? At one point the basket bottom clogged and the mash almost spilled over the top of the kettle; it's possible some grain flowed over the sides of the basket then but I'm not sure. So far I've had stuck recirculations and a scorched element 3 out of 4 brews on this system and I'm wondering if I should just start doing simple infusion mashes without using the pump at all. Would a ULWD element be less likely to burn?
 
hibbleton said:
My first 10 gallon batch this weekend didn't go so well. It was the first time milling my own grain, with the gap set to about 0.04". It was a standard wheat beer, 10lbs pils and 10lbs wheat malt with 14.75 gallons of water. I have the 20 gallon system with hard sided basket and use the recirc arm with about 10" of silicone tubing on the end. I'm not sure if it was the crush of the grain or what, but the element scorched and after the brewday was over I noticed a big pile of what looked close to flour around the element.

Does that sound like too fine a crush? At one point the basket bottom clogged and the mash almost spilled over the top of the kettle; it's possible some grain flowed over the sides of the basket then but I'm not sure. So far I've had stuck recirculations and a scorched element 3 out of 4 brews on this system and I'm wondering if I should just start doing simple infusion mashes without using the pump at all. Would a ULWD element be less likely to burn?
Click to expand...

if you dig through these posts theres many stories similar to this. its a problem we all share and I have been trying to correct it with fissling with some things. I just recently bought a ripple ULWD element for mine and while I haven't made a wheat beer yet with it I did make a batch that had a 1lb of flaked wheat in it and it seemed to work much better than the one that came with my setup (albeit slower). I also have been recirculating under the basket. I'm not sure that's had any real effect but it has increased my efficiency I believe for some reason.
 
Heres pics of a setup Ive decided to do to do a quick sparge at the end of my mash process. This is all stuff I had around so it cost me zero dollars. I may eventually hook up a stc-1000 to it and put in a probe in place of the gauge but I wanna see how well it works before I buy anything for it.

20170522_112624.jpg


20170522_112628.jpg
 
Horseflesh said:
80% brewhouse efficiency? Wow. I get around 65-70% but I am still tuning. I'm also doing 5 gallon batches in the 20 gallon system which may not help.

Today was my first run with the Ss manifold. It does seem to be an improvement over the simple recirc arm. I got a mash efficiency of 78%, about as high as I normally do with frequent of stirring, while only poking at the mash a few times.

Now I think I understand why the holes are on the top of the manifold.

My first instinct was to push it down into the grain bed... Not a lot, just a half inch or so. I started this way and then poked around with my Thermapen after about 15 minutes. Near the manifold the temperature of the top of the bed was close to the desired mash temperature, but it was 5 degrees cooler when you tested away from the wort returns. (Of course, the deeper you measured, the hotter it got.)

Then I set the manifold on top of the bed, not tucked into the grain at all, and this seemed much better. The top of the grain bed was soon covered in wort. I got distracted and didn't take more temperature readings, but having the hot wort from the bottom of the kettle pooling over the whole bed seems much more likely to provide even heat. Presumably the wort filters down at about the same rate all over.

Hit all my numbers pretty well... finally getting this thing dialed in. Good brew day!
Click to expand...

I have a 16-gallon kettle, and usually mash with about 40L (10.5gallon) water.
I actually had a very slow circulation when i recently mashed with 13kg of malt... the level inside the malt-basket rised so high that it started to drain over the edge of the basket... but this was no trouble as the malt bed had already formed, so only a few husks got over the edge - which was easily removed before i started the boil.

I usually have VERY clean wort - and no trub that counts at all after mashing - and since i whirlpool after boil, i usuallt don't get any hops pumped out until the very end when draining the kettle.
Actually got better efficiency with the 13kg/38L mash, than with my last 8kg/40L mash. Both were sparged with approx 20L each time - this probably gives the higher efficiency.

The thing is - when not whirlpooling the mash, but rather using Ultimate sparge arm, i not have to rely as much on having high water ratio as some of you guys.
 
Start with a suuuuper slow recirculation and gradually increase. Eyeing no more than a 1-2" drop in wort level on your sit glass or between you're basket and kettle. I also incorporate a 10ish min rest with no pump or heat on after initial dough-in. My mash timer starts after the 10 minutes has elapsed. I check ph etc during this time.
 
jabba11 said:
if you dig through these posts theres many stories similar to this. its a problem we all share and I have been trying to correct it with fissling with some things. I just recently bought a ripple ULWD element for mine and while I haven't made a wheat beer yet with it I did make a batch that had a 1lb of flaked wheat in it and it seemed to work much better than the one that came with my setup (albeit slower). I also have been recirculating under the basket. I'm not sure that's had any real effect but it has increased my efficiency I believe for some reason.
Click to expand...

My last two beers had 12+ pounds of wheat malt and either flaked wheat or flaked oats, zero issues with scorching now that I recirculate under the basket. It isn't a solve all but it has 100% solved any scorching issues for me.
 
02RedWS6TA said:
My last two beers had 12+ pounds of wheat malt and either flaked wheat or flaked oats, zero issues with scorching now that I recirculate under the basket. It isn't a solve all but it has 100% solved any scorching issues for me.
Click to expand...

Like I said I haven't done a wheat with my new element but it didn't really help before with my old one or at least it didn't seem like it did much. I still had some scorching and a lot of build up. I did try and run the recirc as high as I felt I could this time but Ill keep people posted next time I brew a wheat beer.
 

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