ANVIL FOUNDRY ALL-GRAIN BREWING SYSTEM

[DuncB]

@slurms Hadn't heard about wide bags contributing to muffin tops, just eating less cake and more exercise to reduce your muffin top!

 

[Knightshade]

Just recently got a 10.5gal Foundry and am pretty excited to use it. Though, my main concern is efficiency. Had it pretty nailed down/consistent with my BIAB setup in a 10 gallon boil kettle. Seems the malt pipe will take a hit on efficiency because of the dead space, needing a bigger crush if recirculating, etc.

For those who use a bag in the Foundry instead of the malt pipe, what size bag do you use? I imagine you need a tall, skinny one to fit the shape. I don't think I'd want to use my 10 gallon BK bag since it's pretty wide and will muffin-top grain when pulled out and get wort everywhere. Anyone have any suggestions/recommendations?

There are folks who use bags with or without the malt pipe, so based off of which of those two scenarios you are likely to find yourself in the size of bag needed would vary.

Anvil sells a bag, which is a re-branded "The Brew Bag" and Wilser makes bags as well.

 

[slurms]

I mean, maybe it won't. I haven't tried. I just figured the grain will just be a giant mass at the bottom of the bag and will leak/drip outside the Foundry.

 

[Oginme]

Just recently got a 10.5gal Foundry and am pretty excited to use it. Though, my main concern is efficiency. Had it pretty nailed down/consistent with my BIAB setup in a 10 gallon boil kettle. Seems the malt pipe will take a hit on efficiency because of the dead space, needing a bigger crush if recirculating, etc.

For those who use a bag in the Foundry instead of the malt pipe, what size bag do you use? I imagine you need a tall, skinny one to fit the shape. I don't think I'd want to use my 10 gallon BK bag since it's pretty wide and will muffin-top grain when pulled out and get wort everywhere. Anyone have any suggestions/recommendations?

Set up a couple of times during the mash when you pull the mash pipe up and allow the water trapped on the sides between the mash pipe and the outer walls to get mixed in. If you are doing a 60 minute mash, I would recommend at 30 minutes and then again at 50 minutes into the mash.

 

[DuncB]

Be careful if you lift the mash pipe up and plan to put it down. Did that on my larger Guten and the base was popped out of its seating ring when I put the malt pipe back in. So perhaps a slow return to rest place is advised. I do direct the recirc pipe down the gap a few times during the mash to mix that dead space liquid up.

 

[Brewdog80]

I've a new one, 4 batches so far. The 2 brackets work fine and are worth the little they charge for them, highly suggest. I have my efficiency at 68%, so far and hit it right on. I'm using the 10.5 and use 240v.
I've a wooden paddle and stir the mash pretty often, used full volume, no sparge water for the first three and 2 gallon on last ( gallon would have been fine). I get real good initial boil with a lot of foam for about 10 minutes and then it breaks. When it does, I drop power to 88 to 90% and hit my evaporation rate that I expect.

Love the system. And I suggest a cart to move around. The HF should work fine....

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I'll tell you my process, I use my spread sheet to calculate the amount of water, meaning total water, mash then sparge, I personally have always used 1.75 qt/lb. and that's for a recirculation system. I like 2" of water on top of the grain when recirculating, sometimes I add more to get this and for rice hulls, not all grain is the same.

I started using rice hulls since it’s hard to recirculate hands off with this system and I bought this system to make brewing easier since my 3-pot set up took as much as 8 hours including fly sparging, whirlpooling and so on. for efficiency since I can’t fly sparge I've set my crush to .025 and originally it was .05 so the rice hulls should help keep me from constantly stirring.

the water usually ends up around 10.5 gallons total and somewhere around 5.5 mash and sparge depending on the amount of grain, I usually brew just above 5% beers. when raising the basket, I do a slow batch sparge by just pouring a gallon or 2 at a time, set it to boil at the point of sparging

I add the lid until 200 is reached then prop it up with my paddle until the boil starts to foam, then reduce the power to 90% or even 85% depending on the foam, this is where I get lost because I keep getting foam overs no matter what I do

 

[Noob_Brewer]

I had some time this weekend and scrutinized my 6.5 Foundry dimensions as it pertained to how much water I mashed with. Thought others would be interested since much of it will apply to those and the 10.5's as well.

I've always followed the 1.25 - 1.50 qts ratio of mash water / pound of grain for many years with my propane brews, and on my first batch with the Foundry I did the same. Oops, facepalm, I could quickly tell how dry the mash was because I hadn't thought about all the dead space. Later I made some quick guesses at 3/4 gallon lost under the basket and another 10% on the sides. AI've run that way for a year or so but looking at it more carefully it turns out I'd undershot both of those as well.

The volume under my grain basket and I presume pretty much any other grain basket was 0.97 gallons, which can reasonably be rounded off to "1 gallon".

The volume around the sides of the basket was surprisingly about 30% there. I measured 11-5/8" diameter for the kettle and 9.75 for the basket. Running the math said the inside of the basket was about 70% of the total cross sectional area leaving of course 30% on the outside. It's more than it seems at a glance. The dimensions are rounded a little and don't accommodate for the thickness of the basket wall and so on, so not ultra precise, but very much in the ballpark I believe.

So to decide how much water is really needed to hit that sort of ratio, my new process is:
1) Pick a number, let's say 1.25, for the ratio
2) Multiply it by grain weight (for example, 6 lbs grain in a 6.5 Foundry for a 2.5 gallon Pale Ale would need 1.25 x 6 = 7.5 qts of water)
3) Account for additional water outside the sides of the basket to actually have that volume on the inside (7.5 qts plus another 7.5 times 1 over 70% or put differently 7.5 / 0.70 = 10.7 qts)
4) Add the gallon underneath (10.7 + 4 = 14.7 qts)

So with my example above I don't need 7.5 qts of water for that ratio, I need actually almost double, 14.7, to actually get me where I want.

Lots to hope for here - that it made sense, it helped someone, and that I didn't fudge it up along the way.

It's about to make me ditch the basket and go with a bag, that's for sure.

FWIW, Im on the 10.5gal foundry and calculated similar to you: 1gallon below the malt pipe and by my measurements the malt-pipe is 7 gallons (if filled up to the brim with water and no grains) so there's about 2.5gal total volume along the sides of the malt pipe which is more than most would think. This is why I never paid attention to the water to grist ratio that beer smith gives me because there's a lot fo water not in contact with the grains and the mash is always thicker than the software gives. I never bothered to try to adjust for this water around the sides to adjust to a more realistic water to grist ratio. About 20 brews ago, I switched to a bag and brewzilla false bottom which would also fit the 6.5gal foundry I think because they are same diameter. Have thoroughly enjoyed it and mash is much more homogenous and loose compared to using the malt-pipe.

 

[Noob_Brewer]

Just recently got a 10.5gal Foundry and am pretty excited to use it. Though, my main concern is efficiency. Had it pretty nailed down/consistent with my BIAB setup in a 10 gallon boil kettle. Seems the malt pipe will take a hit on efficiency because of the dead space, needing a bigger crush if recirculating, etc.

For those who use a bag in the Foundry instead of the malt pipe, what size bag do you use? I imagine you need a tall, skinny one to fit the shape. I don't think I'd want to use my 10 gallon BK bag since it's pretty wide and will muffin-top grain when pulled out and get wort everywhere. Anyone have any suggestions/recommendations?

I have brewed on the 10.5gal 49 times now and only NOT used the bag twice lol. I'd highly recommend contacting @wilserbrewer . Thats what I did. After some convos, he recommended to have a bag that was based on the kettle size, not the malt-pipe. Thats what I did. It gives maximum flexibility to what you might want to do. I am still using that bag. I brewed probably about 25 brews with that slightly oversized bag in the malt-pipe and got mash/lauter efficiencies in the mid 70s consistently. Ive since used the same bag without the malt-pipe and picked up the brewzilla false bottom and prefer this now having done over 20 brews this way and my mash/lauter efficiencies have bumped up a little but its just easier for me now. I do sparge as well. Wilserbags are great!

 

[Oginme]

Be careful if you lift the mash pipe up and plan to put it down. Did that on my larger Guten and the base was popped out of its seating ring when I put the malt pipe back in. So perhaps a slow return to rest place is advised. I do direct the recirc pipe down the gap a few times during the mash to mix that dead space liquid up.

Good point. I do a slow pull up and never really let the basket come out of the wort fully. The object is just to allow the water from the sides of the basket to mix with the wort to lessen the difference in gravity between the two. Then slowly allow the basket to settle back down into the kettle so that the wort floats the grain up and the resettling of the bed helps with removing any spots where the wort may be channeling.

 

[harrower]

I've just been going w/the recommended water volume according to the manual. This past brew, I modified a recipe to account for only 65% efficiency for a 1.087. Ended at 1.085, with a little over 3 liters left in the Anvil that I didn't want to transfer to fermenter, a hair over if I count the volume left in the tubing.

Wondering if anybody has added on the additional brackets that now come w/the current Foundry. I'll be doing so before my next brewday. I could NOT...no matter what I did keep that stupid ring from popping out. Had to have my daughter hold it down while I lifted up the basket. Had the mash finished about 15 minutes later, I would have been sitting around waiting for somebody to get home.

I place two needle nose vice grips on either side of the ring so that the basket does not catch the ring when pulling up the basket.

 

[Saunassa]

I have the 10.5 and so far have used the malt pipe for brewing. I mash full volume minus 1 gallon that I use to sparge. The last beer I had 79% efficiency. I do recirculate And stir my mash twice during the mash. But so far brew house efficiency keeps bouncing between 65 and 75 which I suspect is partially due to grain and beer style.

 

[slurms]

I have the 10.5 and so far have used the malt pipe for brewing. I mash full volume minus 1 gallon that I use to sparge. The last beer I had 79% efficiency. I do recirculate And stir my mash twice during the mash. But so far brew house efficiency keeps bouncing between 65 and 75 which I suspect is partially due to grain and beer style.

Interesting. I was thinking about doing my mash like this but was worried about efficiency. But 79% for mash efficiency is great in my books. Do you know what gap you set your mill to when you crush the grains?

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I'll tell you my process, I use my spread sheet to calculate the amount of water, meaning total water, mash then sparge, I personally have always used 1.75 qt/lb. and that's for a recirculation system. I like 2" of water on top of the grain when recirculating, sometimes I add more to get this and for rice hulls, not all grain is the same.

I started using rice hulls since it’s hard to recirculate hands off with this system and I bought this system to make brewing easier since my 3-pot set up took as much as 8 hours including fly sparging, whirlpooling and so on. for efficiency since I can’t fly sparge I've set my crush to .025 and originally it was .05 so the rice hulls should help keep me from constantly stirring.

the water usually ends up around 10.5 gallons total and somewhere around 5.5 mash and sparge depending on the amount of grain, I usually brew just above 5% beers. when raising the basket, I do a slow batch sparge by just pouring a gallon or 2 at a time, set it to boil at the point of sparging

I add the lid until 200 is reached then prop it up with my paddle until the boil starts to foam, then reduce the power to 90% or even 85% depending on the foam, this is where I get lost because I keep getting foam overs no matter what I do

I found the foam issue, flaked grains, I always used flaked barely for head retention, I omitted it in this last recipe and no foam

 

[Mekchu]

I have brewed on the 10.5gal 49 times now and only NOT used the bag twice lol.

So between the 2 of us we have 50 brews on the Anvil 10.5 under our belts.

Did my first yesterday. Think I liked it. I enjoyed not lifting a 10 gal mash tun onto the counter, then a brew kettle with 7 gal of wort on to the stove top.

A couple quirks I ran across were widely different temp readings from an inserted thermometer and the readout from the controller. Strike water should have been 162F but thermometer reading was 171F. Then I think trub around the sensor at the bottom gave me a reading of 110F while a thermometer said 65F. A stir which lifted the cold break quickly equalized the readings.

So, I have a few things to sort out on the new system and appreciate reading what others are doing.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

So between the 2 of us we have 50 brews on the Anvil 10.5 under our belts.

Did my first yesterday. Think I liked it. I enjoyed not lifting a 10 gal mash tun onto the counter, then a brew kettle with 7 gal of wort on to the stove top.

A couple quirks I ran across were widely different temp readings from an inserted thermometer and the readout from the controller. Strike water should have been 162F but thermometer reading was 171F. Then I think trub around the sensor at the bottom gave me a reading of 110F while a thermometer said 65F. A stir which lifted the cold break quickly equalized the readings.

So, I have a few things to sort out on the new system and appreciate reading what others are doing.

I'm guessing you don't recirculate? that's the only way to get a true temp reading

 

[Noob_Brewer]

Strike water should have been 162F but thermometer reading was 171F. Then I think trub around the sensor at the bottom gave me a reading of 110F while a thermometer said 65F. A stir which lifted the cold break quickly equalized the readings.

I don't recirculate when heating strike water which for me is the mash and sparge at once. I don't typically do full volume, so I like to not have water in my hoses when taking out my sparge and making sure the strike mash water volume is accurate. But this is odd to me. When heating my water, the anvil temperature (probe is at the bottom of kettle) is always within one degree of my thermapen at the top. Are you saying the top is hotter than your bottom when just heating strike and nothing else is in the water? If thats the case, Id say one of those two measurements is in error i.e. out of calibration. When I am chilling to pitching temps with my IC, I DO occasionally get a higher reading from the low anvil probe compared to the top which is due to the trub/hops insulating the low anvil probe. I let my hops roam free so I do see this every now and then but not all the time. I guess its just dependent on how everything settles.

I'm guessing you don't recirculate? that's the only way to get a true temp reading

I agree completely in general. While recirculating during the mash, the top of the mash is always pretty close +/- 2 degrees to the bottom anvil probe unless Im in the middle of stepping up the temp. Then there's a little lag of course. But during chilling, you may encounter a higher than normal temp reading down low due to hops/trub insulating the probe. In those instances its happened to me, rather than moving around the IC to equalize it (which makes the hop/trub resuspend in the wort - not something I aim for), I just trust the top thermapen reading to know Im at pitching temps. This discrepancy can happen even if you are using a whirlpool arm and recirculating the wort around the IC. I use the spin cycle from brewhardware.com and love it. Again, I let my hops roam free so there's more in my kettle to insulate the temp probe.

Cheers!

 

[Saunassa]

Interesting. I was thinking about doing my mash like this but was worried about efficiency. But 79% for mash efficiency is great in my books. Do you know what gap you set your mill to when you crush the grains?

Actually I have no idea of the gap. I was given a monster mill 3 and the guy said he did not have stuck mashes. I do know it gives me a great crush with less flour then my hullwrecker did. Cream ale, pale ale and hefeweizen no problem other then bouncing efficiency . I added 2 cups of rice hulls to this stout that I got 79% on just to see what would happen and will do the same on the next pale ale to see how it affects efficiency.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

Anyone have the boil off rate for using a steam slayer

 

[Mekchu]

I'm guessing you don't recirculate? that's the only way to get a true temp reading

You are correct. I did not recirculate until 10 minutes into the mash

 

[tracer bullet]

Anyone have the boil off rate for using a steam slayer

3.55 goes to 3.00 in 1 hour on a 6.5 with 240V at 70%

I think you'll have to experiment. Small power level changes make a difference, even just the starting volume makes a difference. Fill yours up with water at an approximately normal level, get it up to a boil, and then run an hour and see what you get. It's a good chance to shake down the system too and be sure it's not leaking, is draining OK, and so on.

 

[Mekchu]

I don't recirculate when heating strike water which for me is the mash and sparge at once. I don't typically do full volume, so I like to not have water in my hoses when taking out my sparge and making sure the strike mash water volume is accurate. But this is odd to me. When heating my water, the anvil temperature (probe is at the bottom of kettle) is always within one degree of my thermapen at the top. Are you saying the top is hotter than your bottom when just heating strike and nothing else is in the water? If thats the case, Id say one of those two measurements is in error i.e. out of calibration. When I am chilling to pitching temps with my IC, I DO occasionally get a higher reading from the low anvil probe compared to the top which is due to the trub/hops insulating the low anvil probe. I let my hops roam free so I do see this every now and then but not all the time. I guess its just dependent on how everything settles.




I agree completely in general. While recirculating during the mash, the top of the mash is always pretty close +/- 2 degrees to the bottom anvil probe unless Im in the middle of stepping up the temp. Then there's a little lag of course. But during chilling, you may encounter a higher than normal temp reading down low due to hops/trub insulating the probe. In those instances its happened to me, rather than moving around the IC to equalize it (which makes the hop/trub resuspend in the wort - not something I aim for), I just trust the top thermapen reading to know Im at pitching temps. This discrepancy can happen even if you are using a whirlpool arm and recirculating the wort around the IC. I use the spin cycle from brewhardware.com and love it. Again, I let my hops roam free so there's more in my kettle to insulate the temp probe.

Cheers!

Yeah, I could have just misread my new thermometer, since 71C is roughly 160F. lol

The system did surge at one point during the mash. Set temp was 155F and actual read about the same, but then actual reading started to climb rapidly to about 165F with an alarm beeping away like it was Chernobyl or something. I'm thinking, yeah you're freaking out but it's all you, I have no control over this. It corrected itself pretty quickly and seemed to work fine after that.

I think one aspect of electric brewing that I will have to get use to is not having the simplicity and immediate control of a gas flame. For me the electronic controller is literally and figuratively a black box.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

3.55 goes to 3.00 in 1 hour on a 6.5 with 240V at 70%

I think you'll have to experiment. Small power level changes make a difference, even just the starting volume makes a difference. Fill yours up with water at an approximately normal level, get it up to a boil, and then run an hour and see what you get. It's a good chance to shake down the system too and be sure it's not leaking, is draining OK, and so on.

looks like 70% is the sweet spot for the boil with the lid on, thank you for that, I did a test and to keep any steam out of the house I had to start my water at 200, what's your process

 

[tracer bullet]

what's your process

I'm not sure I know what you're asking...

After I'm done mashing and I'm starting to drain the grain, sparge, and etc. I bump the power to 100% to start heating the wort while I'm monkeying around. About the time I'm all wrapped up and I've checked my gravity, added some Fermcap, hop spider and boil hops, assembled the tri-clamps, hooked up the water and drain lines, and so on - I'm almost at a boil. After that I drop down to 70% power, close the lid, and start working on all the stuff I need to find, sanitize and assemble. I might check every couple minutes to see if it's boiling for sure (decent surface movement rippling around) and when it is I start my 60 minute timer.

BTW in my 6.5 on 240V I'm starting around 3.5 - 4 gallons of water. I've seen that even just a 5% power change, or even starting as far down as like 3 gallons of water, both can have a big effect on what boils off. Well, an effect like +/- 1/4 gallon anyhow, which is a lot on a 6.5. I got my initial reads just using plain water and went from there.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

a water test reduce about the same as you in an hour for me and that's important to change my recipe, I'm really concerned about steam of any kind getting in the house, I left the lid on to 200 but steam is already flowing through the steam slayer at that point so I started the water, I know its probably impossible to keep it all out but it looks like that worked, the bad news is I used about 9 gallons of water by starting at 200, thanks for the help

 

[tracer bullet]

It does chew up some water. I have a few spray nozzles and ended up on one that sounds similar, rated for like 9-ish GPH. I could probably get away with lower but like to not have it draining out scorching hot like it was at 6-ish. And TBH while I attempt many green things in my life, here in MN water is fairly plentiful. I'm sure I'd think differently in AZ or CA.

I try to keep the steam down as well, the house can handle it but the less my wife thinks the house "smells like a brewery" the more acceptable she is to me brewing in the house. Here (again noting MN) if I want to brew in January (or really November through March) it's the only realistic option.

 

[jimdkc]

I always wondered... why is "smells like a brewery" considered a bad thing?

 

[Knightshade]

Was looking at the still options on Anvil's website the other day. Not sure why...doubt I have the patience to do something and wait a couple of years to determine if it is any good or not.

and I keep looking at the BrewEasy Compact. The footprint is really attractive..and the idea that you could disconnect everything and just throw it into the damn dishwasher is alluring too.

 

[tracer bullet]

doubt I have the patience to do something and wait a couple of years to determine if it is any good or not.

Not sure I understand what you're saying. What do you have to wait a couple years for?

 

[Knightshade]

Not sure I understand what you're saying. What do you have to wait a couple years for?

The whole distilling, aging bit. I know it isn't required, but...probably recommended.