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Congratulations on your system. It sounds like a sweet setup. Your crush is a good place to start as you get your process dialed in. You can easily hit 70% mash efficiency with your Solo. I’m at ~80% mash efficiency (BeerSmith) with minimal grain in the wort and no stuck sparge. However, it took...

Bobby_M, that makes a lot of sense. I think this is great advice.

Beerstein, my heating element gets discolored (maybe scorched?) if I don’t clean it well between brews. Also, I reduce the PID to 60% once the boil gets going. After the break, I reduce to 35% when I put the steam condenser lid on. I’m using a 15 gallon Solo so your numbers will likely be a...

I think you are on the right track looking at ways to control the water flow. I use the valve on my Blichmann RipTide to control the flow and keep the triclamp valve on the kettle fully open. With your grain bill a stuck sparge should not be an issue. Here’s the session data from my last brew...

Don’t give up. I had grain in the boil for my first few brews. Here’s how I solved it. First, when I mash in I only stir the surface and go slowly to prevent lumps. Getting someone to do the stirring while I slowly pour the grain makes it easier, but I often do it myself. I never get the mash...

Glad to hear it’s working out.

SanomaBrewer, I am getting about 75% mash efficiency (BeerSmith) with my 15 gallon Solo. This is about where my old picnic cooler / batch sparge setup ran.Your process sounds about like mine. I stir the top 1/3 of the mash every 10 minutes. Deeper if the wort level starts to rise. I keep the...

Here’s a picture of my Spike controller.

Matt, I drop my temperature and hold at 180 F. The PID controller makes that easy. Once I’m at 180 F. I add hops directly to the kettle and whirlpool for about 20 minutes. The counter flow chiller is hooked up with the cooling water turned off. The hops are circulating through the chiller but so...

OceanGrace24, thanks for replying.

KVbeer, thank you again for sharing your PID settings. I never would have thought to go that low. After some “dry run” trial and error, I tried 35% (15 gallon Solo, 240 Volt). I hit all of my numbers with zero foam and no hops sticking to the side of the kettle. Win! I see you are living in...

I’m at 60% power in manual mode once the boil gets started. Do you know your evaporation rate at 28% power? I measured mine and am at 1.25 gallons per hour at 60%. Reducing power further sounds like a good thing to try. Thanks!

I have brewed 13 batches in my Solo with a Spike condenser lid. The learning curve was steep, but my process is now repeatable and under control. OG and FG are matching Brewsmith’s estimates exactly (that’s probably luck, not skill). I get a very pronounced trub cone in the whirlpool. My wort is...