ANVIL FOUNDRY ALL-GRAIN BREWING SYSTEM

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Noob_Brewer said:
Will be keeping my eye on this. About the only thing I don't like about the 10.5gallon foundry is the fact that during slow times of the year, I wish I could do 10gallon finished batches and split them into two fermonsters. Interesting the malt pipe has integrated a removable false bottom looking exactly like blichmanns false bottom with buttons.

Perhaps @highland_brewer has one (or will soon) to review? Curious what the actual inside diameter is on this one.

https://www.anvilbrewing.com/foundry-18
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Since you already have a 10.5 might be best to get another. I have two 10.5's and last time I brewed on both of them I delayed the second kettle by about an hour so I could use my chiller and pump on both brews.
 
So I just bought a Blichmann BrewEasy for 10 gallon batches.... Honestly I don't see much benefit with it compares to Anvil. What benefits or perspectives am I missing?
 
Knightshade said:
Or if you're tired of being limited by the 16lb weight limit. 36lb weight limit on this one, with a 5G minimum batch size. Looks interesting for sure. Short Circuited Brewers seems to have become the unofficial/official brewtuber for Blichmann, so something is probably coming soon.
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He said in Foundry FB page that a review video of the new 18 gallon system will be posted Sunday.
 
BrewersVocation said:
So I just bought a Blichmann BrewEasy for 10 gallon batches.... Honestly I don't see much benefit with it compares to Anvil. What benefits or perspectives am I missing?
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I've yet to see the BrewEasy IRL, but my assumption is that you can replace the heating element/controller if it fails and/or break the entire thing down and throw it in the dishwasher if you so chose. Not so much an option w/the Foundry.
 
Would appreciate you input regarding temperature consistency and accuracy. I've had my Foundry for over a year now and have done 16 brews with it. I have never checked the mash temperature with a temperature probe (highly accurate) until recently. In doing so, I notice that, although the Foundry reads the mash temp at 151, for example, with the temp probe sticking through the top of the malt pipe several inches into the mash, or in the liquid that surrounds the malt pipe, it measures the temp to be 146. Please note: I follow the process per the Foundry's manual although I set my strike temp 2 degrees lower than what the manual calls for. I begin recirculating 10 minutes into the mash. I've repeated this throughout the 1 hour mash and through several brews and had the same results. What could be causing this? Should I adjust the Foundry so that temp probe measures at desired mash temp?
 
Used mine to brew a stout in the house yesterday. The biggest issue using it in the garage has been moving it outside to rinse and dump. Was going to build a platform for it and the pump but then thought, do it easy. Went to HF and bought a large hand truck on sale. Dang, could roll it to sink to chill, lift it up and pour out the dregs. Used a 5 gallon stock pot to hold and carry out the malt pipe, dump, rinse and bring inside to finish cleaning. Easiest day ever.
Screenshot_20211211-110322.png
 
I've had a terrible time with low efficiency on mine, I'm also having issues with a constant foaming boil, either that or if I stir the center shooting up, the boil element seams to pulse which doesn't help creating a rolling boil it creates more problems, I've tried reducing the power to 90% and that helps but I never get a rolling boil, just foam boils pulsing
 
Do you have poor mash conversion efficiency or post boil? Mash efficiency is usually 95% or better for me. For the boil after my 60 minute hop addition has come back to a boil I turn it down to 98% so the heater runs more continuous. It is a gentle boil and not a rolling one like propane does. I do average the 2qt boil off they specify in the manual.
 
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Ozarks_Mountain_Brew said:
I've had a terrible time with low efficiency on mine, I'm also having issues with a constant foaming boil, either that or if I stir the center shooting up, the boil element seams to pulse which doesn't help creating a rolling boil it creates more problems, I've tried reducing the power to 90% and that helps but I never get a rolling boil, just foam boils pulsing
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Im assuming you are on 240V? I am using 240V 10.5gallon system and typically use 100% to get it to a boil and then turn it down to 85-87% for a nice boil.
 
Noob_Brewer said:
Im assuming you are on 240V? I am using 240V 10.5gallon system and typically use 100% to get it to a boil and then turn it down to 85-87% for a nice boil.
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yes and after 3 quick brews I'm still not dialed in, too used to my hands off 25 gallon 3 pot system, the point of buying this is to make it easier lol
 
Ozarks_Mountain_Brew said:
yes and after 3 quick brews I'm still not dialed in, too used to my hands off 25 gallon 3 pot system, the point of buying this is to make it easier lol
Click to expand...
Whats your crush like? Not sure if you are using a bag or malt-pipe or both. Reason why I ask is that perhaps (not totally sure) but if you get a good bit of flour sediment on the bottom, Im wondering if even mild scorching/browning might be the reason. I use a bag (no malt-pipe) with a brewzilla false bottom. I crush at 0.030" (using feeler gauges on a cereal killer). Even though I don't really agitate my mash much at all after mash in other than gentle recirculating I do get some flour buildup on the bottom for my NEIPAs particularly. Every so often, I use bar keepers friend with a non-abbrasive sponge and wipe out any mild browning I see on the bottom. Just a thought but not sure.

EDIT: with the explanation above Im really referring to the constant foaming during boil, not the low efficiency.
 
I had not connected the foaming I used to get with my NB hull wrecker (cereal killer) when I used a bag in propane heated pot. Now with the 3 roller and recirculating pump during mash I don't have much trub and the foam usually goes always after 30 minutes boiling.
 
I've got my crush set to .05 , same as I've used for 12 years with my last system and I've always had a 85% brewhouse efficiency, before the foam always dissipated with a 5500 watt element always on 100% and a 25 gallon kettle brewing a 14.75 gallon wort down to 12 gallons, this is probably just a new learning curve., I do recirculate at 50% now and the mash seams fine as long as I stir a few times, the boil seams to be the issue
 
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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
slurms said:
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?
Click to expand...

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 said:
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?
Click to expand...

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.
 
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.
 
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....
 
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
 
tracer bullet said:
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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
slurms said:
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?
Click to expand...
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!
 
DuncB said:
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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
Knightshade said:
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.
Click to expand...


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.
 
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.
 
Saunassa said:
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.
Click to expand...
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_Brew said:
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
Click to expand...

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
 
Noob_Brewer said:
I have brewed on the 10.5gal 49 times now and only NOT used the bag twice lol.
Click to expand...
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.
 
Mekchu said:
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.
Click to expand...
I'm guessing you don't recirculate? that's the only way to get a true temp reading
 
Mekchu said:
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.
Click to expand...
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.


Ozarks_Mountain_Brew said:
I'm guessing you don't recirculate? that's the only way to get a true temp reading
Click to expand...

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!
 
slurms said:
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?
Click to expand...
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.
 

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