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Nice RV-12. Did you build it?

Yes, this is normal with a steam condensing lid. My profile for a 15 gallon kettle with a steam condensing lid is set at .6 gallons per hour boil off. Here’s my power schedule: I run 100% power without the lid until the wort starts to boil. Then I reduce power to 60% until the hot break...

Bingo! Great observation. If you are boiling with an open kettle (no steam condensing lid), your boil off rate will vary due to the environment…air temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, wind. One way to nail your numbers is plan to add a quart of top up water at the end of the boil. That...

Excellent, terrific advice. If you don’t want to do the calculations given in pvtpublic’s reply, you can use brewing software (e.g. BeerSmith, Grainfather) instead.

HopChef, you are a real brewing master. This is the great advice and is one of the best posts I have read on this forum. Thank you! As for other ideas, consider environmental factors if you are brewing outside. Temperature and humidity can affect your boil off rate. That’s one of the reasons I...

Northern Brewer was my go to for years until their shipping got very bad. Weeks to receive an order just isn’t acceptable. I tried Ritebrew for the first time and my supplies arrived the next day. Plus I can order grain by the ounce. I hope Northern gets their act together, but I doubt I’ll ever...

I had trouble with this at first, too. I wasn’t getting the plug all the way into the socket. Once I juggled and wiggled it into place, I could get it to twist slightly and it has been fine ever since. It doesn’t twist vey much…a few degrees is all.

Dave, here’s the session data from my last brew. 71.6% mash efficiency. That’s about what I usually get with the Solo. I raise the mash temperature to 168 and hold it there for 10 minutes before raising the basket. Then I vorlauf for 15 minutes. This seems to help pull my efficiency up. If you...

Sigma Six, here’s a screenshot of my equipment profile. I hit the BeerSmith OG and FG estimates within a gravity point for both large and small grain bills. I know my overall efficiency is really, really bad, but that’s because I purposely leave a total of 2.75 gallons of wort and beer in the...

Plus one on support after the sale.

This might be a record of some kind. What were you brewing?

Everything looks solid to me. You have the best equipment available. You obviously know how to use it. Your process is sound. You’re willing to troubleshoot and experiment. I agree a good place to start is with your recirc. The only other thing I can think of is BrewCommander settings somehow...

How are you getting your mash temps? PID readout? ThermaPen? Other? Do you use a cover while mashing? Your equipment and process seems sound.

I’m not familiar with the BrewCommander, but it gets pretty good reviews. I use Spike’s controller and have it set to ‘Auto’ for mashing. It gets set to ‘Manual’ for boiling. I’m not sure if the BrewCommander has equivalent settings. My temps (according to the PID readout) are very stable (+- a...

I account for this in the “trub loss” value found in the equipment profile. I have this value set to 1.75 gallons. This might be higher than most people’s setting, but by raising the kettle pickup tube and leaving more wort behind when I transfer from kettle to fermenter, I minimize the amount...

slade_brewing, there should be no dead space loss when mashing with the Solo system…or any BIAB system. My losses are set to zero.

I am using the latest online version of BeerSmith and there may be differences between BeerSmith versions and platforms. What you are saying makes sense. There really shouldn’t be any mash related dead space losses for the Solo system. As Bigzz1313 suggested, a good place to start is with the...

I use both. I uncheck the “Adj mash for dead space” box in the Spike Solo equipment profile and my volumes are right on. Here’s a screen shot of my profile: