ANVIL FOUNDRY ALL-GRAIN BREWING SYSTEM

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Ozarks_Mountain_Brew said:
what bags do you guys use that are reasonably prices, I've had so may rip and I'm not paying $50 just to have it happen again
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I got mine from WilserBrewer. When I got it, and after talking to him about it, I got it sized to the kettle, not the malt pipe. That gave me flexibility to put bag in malt pipe or without malt pipe. Wouldn't recommend any other way to be honest. Ive done over 50 brews with the bag and its been beaten, but it doesn't have any tears at all and all seams are still perfect.
 
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Ozarks_Mountain_Brew said:
I...bought one from more beer and first brew it was toast, It could have been from scraping the bottom with my paddle, that's where it ripped
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I've never seen the Morebeer bag to know how sturdy it is comparatively. I've also never used a mash paddle. I know it's the traditional tool, so it must work (right?) but in my head a french whip just made more sense - it's great at breaking up clumps (and it's not going to rip my bag).
 
bleme said:
I've never seen the Morebeer bag to know how sturdy it is comparatively. I've also never used a mash paddle. I know it's the traditional tool, so it must work (right?) but in my head a french whip just made more sense - it's great at breaking up clumps (and it's not going to rip my bag).
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well I'm old school with a 25 gallon 3 pot herms set up moving to anvil, its a learning curve for sure, I'm used to digging hard to stir up the mash
 
Ozarks_Mountain_Brew said:
what bags do you guys use that are reasonably prices, I've had so may rip and I'm not paying $50 just to have it happen again
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I use a 5 gallon paint strainer bag in my Anvil 6.5. Fits perfectly over the false bottom without the malt pipe and although it is not as robust as the ones many use it will last several brews with a bit of care stirring and at 3 or 4 dollars can be replaced easily and painlessly. Or am I being TOO cheap??😜
 
Finely pulled the trigger and ordered a 10.5 thanks for answering all my questions, hope it doesn’t take to long to show up.

Cheers
 
I just got the 10.5 last week. Ordered 4PM Thursday and received it 1PM Friday. Ordered a bunch of goodies along with it. I was expecting about a week but then I only live 4 1/2 hours from Lafayette.
 
So I got my anvil today and I set everything up so I could do a pbw soak and have it all ready for a weekend brew but the pump was not working. It would hum but not spin. So I took it apart per the instructions and the motor would spin without the impeller and head on, so put it all back together and got it to work. Seems to be working now but it is getting very hot (can’t keep my hand on it for more than 5 to 10 seconds) is this normal? Don’t want to burn it up. Wondering if I need to call about a replacement.

Thanks for any help

Cheers
 
Definitely not normal. Assuming you're not running boiling water through it, and that you are indeed running at least some water through it.

Generally when they stick, it's wort in them that gummed it up. between the white plastic head and the gray part of the inside of the pump body. Odd it's an issue brands new.
 
tracer bullet said:
Definitely not normal. Assuming you're not running boiling water through it, and that you are indeed running at least some water through it.

Generally when they stick, it's wort in them that gummed it up. between the white plastic head and the gray part of the inside of the pump body. Odd it's an issue brands new.
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Well that sucks, I was hoping it was the temp of the water I was pumping (150 degrees) that was transferring heat through to the body of the pump making it so hot to the touch, guess I’d better fire off an email to anvil.
 
What I was trying to ask was is it normal for the pump body to run at the same temperature as the liquid your pumping. I didn’t expect the motor housing to get that hot, I’m a little jumpy because it didn’t run right out of the box.
 
GBRbrew said:
I didn’t expect the motor housing to get that hot,
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"that hot" (my emphasis ^, above) is a very subjective measure, of course...

The motor gets warm from running and it's also close to the pump chamber. When pumping hot water/wort/cleaner, some of that heat transfers to the motor, sure. If it feels abnormally hot, shoot the company an email.

I don't own one, perhaps someone with one of those Foundries can elaborate on how hot the pump motor gets, and what's considered normal.
 
Anyone ever mash out by pulling the malt basket, raise the wort temp and re-insert the malt bin/mash to get the 170 temp? What temp is needed to hit 170 mash out for 6 gallon wort? Guessing 180-185?
 
kydan47 said:
Guessing 180-185?
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At least.
Since the basket was raised, it cools during the time you're warming the wort. You may lose 10 degrees, perhaps more. That's one large wet heap of grain at 140-150F to be reheated to 170F.

Why not just recirculate through your grain, while heating to mash out temps? I'd say that's more productive.
 
kydan47 said:
Anyone ever mash out by pulling the malt basket, raise the wort temp and re-insert the malt bin/mash to get the 170 temp? What temp is needed to hit 170 mash out for 6 gallon wort? Guessing 180-185?
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What IslandLizard said sounds good.
TBH- since brewing w my Foundry, I have skipped the mash out. I haven’t notice a difference in my beers. FG’s have remained consistent and I’ve done some pretty knuckleheaded things.
Like mashing out at night and pulling grains and leaving the foundry on until the next night to start my boil.
Yup. That’s right, my wort stayed at 152f for almost 24 hours. I had to add about 2 gallons of water back into wort because of evaporation. It was a pils type lager and the wort looked like an amber. Oddly enough after fermentation it lightened up to its normal color. IIRC the fg was .010 or .012.
 
IslandLizard said:
"that hot" (my emphasis ^, above) is a very subjective measure, of course...

The motor gets warm from running and it's also close to the pump chamber. When pumping hot water/wort/cleaner, some of that heat transfers to the motor, sure. If it feels abnormally hot, shoot the company an email.

I don't own one, perhaps someone with one of those Foundries can elaborate on how hot the pump motor gets, and what's considered normal.
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Yea that’s my problem, I don’t know what abnormally hot is. Next time I run it I’ll try to get a temp reading to find out how hot it is, if it’s the same as what I’m pumping I ask anvil if that’s normal, if it’s hotter I probably have a problem.
 
GBRbrew said:
Yea that’s my problem, I don’t know what abnormally hot is. Next time I run it I’ll try to get a temp reading to find out how hot it is, if it’s the same as what I’m pumping I ask anvil if that’s normal, if it’s hotter I probably have a problem.
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Why not see how hot/warm it gets pumping room temp water? If it gets too hot to touch then, it's probably an issue with the motor.

Brew on :mug:
 
GBRbrew said:
Next time I run it I’ll try to get a temp reading to find out how hot it is, if it’s the same as what I’m pumping I ask anvil if that’s normal, if it’s hotter I probably have a problem.
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Run room temp water for a while, see what happens.

It's a motor, so expect some heat. But not hard to touch or anything.
 
I have noticed that my anvil pump gets hot after a full brew day which includes a finishing CIP Recirculation at 150 with PBW...thats when I take the pump apart and notice its hot...but never put a thought into whether thats too hot or just a function of the CIP at 150. can't say that Ive ever put my hand on the pump body during the brew day otherwise though. But with over 50 brews using the same procedures, the lil pump still going strong.
 
AzOr said:
TBH- since brewing w my Foundry, I have skipped the mash out. I haven’t notice a difference in my beers. FG’s have remained consistent and I’ve done some pretty knuckleheaded things.
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Same here. I just pull the basket at the end of the mash. Once it is drained I slowly pour over about 1.5 gallons of room temp water and still average around 80% efficiency.
 
I did a test run with my new AF 10.5 yesterday to clean it with PBW and to get familiar with it before actually brewing. I also wanted to get a sense for temp ramp times using 110v. I do 2.5G batches but bought this larger unit in case I later want to return to 5G batches. Here were my temp ramp times measured where ambient air temp was in the upper 80s for a water volume of 5.25G:

78F-158F, 53 min
158F-212F, 42 min

Using supplied SS chiller with low water flow and inlet temp of upper 70s here were my ramp down times:

204F-180F, 15 sec
180F-90F, 17 min

Overall I’m impressed as I was expecting much longer ramp up times with 110v. I spent a total of 3:15 hours with ramp up/down times and cleaning up. A brew day would add 2.5 hours to account for mash, boil, and whirlpool time. This won’t be a time savings from my propane BIAB setup I’ve been using. I guess having the option for a delayed start to heat for the mash so I can set things up the night before will knock an hour off of my “touch” time. I’m also hoping to get higher efficiencies with the recirculating pump.

I was surprised Anvil chose to use a round knob for the lid handle rather than a U-shaped handle to allow hanging the lid off of the kettle side handle when taking mash measurements. Every brew kettle I’ve seen has this including mine. I had to ensure I had a clean place near the AF in my garage to place the lid anytime I need to do more than peek inside the kettle. If Anvil Brewing is listening this would be a nice design change :).
 
youngdh said:
Overall I’m impressed as I was expecting much longer ramp up times with 110v.
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I'm sure it's obvious but 240V cuts that drastically. But everyone's got a different situation as far as how easy that is to do or how often they brew, how much time they have in their day, and so on.

The handle idea is a really good one. It does screw together so maybe there's a modification easily made with some other part. Or if anyone here wants to start printing and selling them!
 
So I bought a standard true weldless TC bulkhead from Bobby a long while ago so that I could recirculate through the lid with Locline on the inside allowing me to skip the Recirculation disc all together. Works great. Just remove the anvil lid handle and the bulkhead fits perfectly with no drilling needed. I imagine if @youngdh wanted to fabricate a lid handle that has a TC connection it would work....although it might go down as the most expensive lid handle in history lol.

https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/tc15wlf.htm
 
tracer bullet said:
I'm sure it's obvious but 240V cuts that drastically. But everyone's got a different situation as far as how easy that is to do or how often they brew, how much time they have in their day, and so on.

The handle idea is a really good one. It does screw together so maybe there's a modification easily made with some other part. Or if anyone here wants to start printing and selling them
Click to expand...
tracer bullet said:
I'm sure it's obvious but 240V cuts that drastically. But everyone's got a different situation as far as how easy that is to do or how often they brew, how much time they have in their day, and so on.

The handle idea is a really good one. It does screw together so maybe there's a modification easily made with some other part. Or if anyone here wants to start printing and selling them!
Click to expand...
I’ll be moving in about six months to a new home we’re building in FL for our retirement which I’m having a 240v/50A supply put in the garage for this very purpose, and possibly and EV charging station once I get over my range anxiety of EVs. My current home has the old 3 prong non-GFI 240/30 dryer outlet. It’s not worth paying to have a GFI put on the dryer outlet at this point since I can limp by during this period on 110v :). I’ve seen Short Circuited Brewing’s YouTube video on making a GFI pigtail. It would be $150-$200 in parts to make that based on today’s parts prices.
 
Got mine on Saturday and made an Oktoberfest that night. Got it direct and it seems I got one of the newer versions, with a different false bottom and no side holes. Made some silly mistakes along the way, but I can tell I’m going to like it. Gonna make a 2.5 gal batch of a DIPA this weekend to see
 
cmac62 said:
If you want to run a still possibly anytime in the future you may want to get a 2" This is what I got and it fits perfectly. :mug:
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Are you distilling with your Foundry cmac? I agree…Bobby’s TC fitting in lid is excellent.
 
Williamsbrewing said:
I have a Series 2 Mash & Boil and is has a plus or minus 1 degree thermostat. Very pleased with it, especially since the basket is elevated so I can see the gallon markers when I sparge. This eliminates calculating sparge water which I am too lazy to do!
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Glad to hear that you like it. I bought the first M&B a year before the Series 2 so I’m kind of bummed. The Series 2 doesn’t seem to get much attention and that seems a shame at its price point. Maybe I’m wrong about that but I sure don’t see it mentioned on HBT much at all. The Anvil Foundry came along at the right time with its quality and performance so the Series 2 M&B perhaps came a bit late to capitalize with the improvements it has over the first one.
 
rtstrider said:
I've been eyeballing this and like the upgrades listed here



I'm holding out for rea$on$ but should be purchasing this by next Summer if life allows. The Clawhammer upgrade seems neat but not too sure I'd go that route. Now what really sticks out was the Brew Bag. I can see where using a bag, in the malt pipe, that's larger than the malt pipe could be extremely beneficial in keeping grains in the malt pipe. Also it would allow for a more normal mash/sparge setup. By that I mean mash in around 1.5 to 1.8 lbs per gallon then use a hlt for a fake fly sparge. Even though the grains aren't submerged in the water at that point I'd have to think that would make a difference. Also the most recent pictures on the Foundry site looks like they may have removed the holes on the side bottom of the malt pipe so a small batch adapter may no longer be needed for better efficiency?
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Digging this up from the archives, got a few questions for y'all, especially if you are using a brew bag:

1. Do you constantly recirculate throughout the mash? I want to say that not recirculating for most of the mash has given me better numbers. Then again, a stream of wort strain down probably isn't a good recirculation system, thinking about a spray valve.

2. Spray valve worth it?

3. Do you double mill your grains? I used to do this with BIAB kettle, but just stopped with the Foundry basket, but I have a bag now so I should probably get back to a double mill setting.
 
secretlevel said:
Digging this up from the archives, got a few questions for y'all, especially if you are using a brew bag:

1. Do you constantly recirculate throughout the mash? I want to say that not recirculating for most of the mash has given me better numbers. Then again, a stream of wort strain down probably isn't a good recirculation system, thinking about a spray valve.

2. Spray valve worth it?

3. Do you double mill your grains? I used to do this with BIAB kettle, but just stopped with the Foundry basket, but I have a bag now so I should probably get back to a double mill setting.
Click to expand...
I do recirculate. I do it to help keep the temperatures even. But will be honest I haven't done a test to check how much it helps, and you probably already know that mash temps aren't exactly hyper critical to start with.

I don't have a spray valve. I didn't figure I needed to go quite that far. Also if one is even slightly concerned about introducing oxygen at this point it'd be a deal breaker. That seems to still be a contentious thing of course but may be a consideration.

I crush at a feeler-gauge-measured 0.028" gap, with pre-misting the grains through a squeeze bottle at a rate of about 1 oz / 4lbs. Not sure it helps crush but it certainly keeps dust down. On a typical kind of beer i.e. a Pale Ale at ~ 5.5% ABV I can get a touch over 70% efficiency no-sparge and knock on the door of 80% with a dunk sparge.
 
secretlevel said:
Digging this up from the archives, got a few questions for y'all, especially if you are using a brew bag:

1. Do you constantly recirculate throughout the mash? I want to say that not recirculating for most of the mash has given me better numbers. Then again, a stream of wort strain down probably isn't a good recirculation system, thinking about a spray valve.

2. Spray valve worth it?

3. Do you double mill your grains? I used to do this with BIAB kettle, but just stopped with the Foundry basket, but I have a bag now so I should probably get back to a double mill setting.
Click to expand...
I’ve tried several different ways of recirculation, and honestly I have to say personally I can’t say it makes much of a difference. I agree with everything Tracer said above.

I have the spray nozzle and have used it on my Spike Solo-Commander. I keeps recirculation even when you get it dialed in, but it’s a PITA. Bobby M provided some good insight on using spray valve and he makes a good point (against using one). FWIW I‘m now using the Locline for recirculating when I choose to do it.

If you’re not using a grain bag I wouldn’t mill below 0.028” gap. If you’re using a bag you can try milling finer than that for increased efficiency. Last brew on my Foundry I used a bag and hit the right numbers with a finer crush.
 
secretlevel said:
Digging this up from the archives, got a few questions for y'all, especially if you are using a brew bag:

1. Do you constantly recirculate throughout the mash? I want to say that not recirculating for most of the mash has given me better numbers. Then again, a stream of wort strain down probably isn't a good recirculation system, thinking about a spray valve.

2. Spray valve worth it?

3. Do you double mill your grains? I used to do this with BIAB kettle, but just stopped with the Foundry basket, but I have a bag now so I should probably get back to a double mill setting.
Click to expand...
Im against the spray valve personally. I switched from the recirculation disc long ago in favor of putting Locline through the lid and the wort exists below the wort line to avoid splashing. I have a TC connection on top of my lid to accommodate this. As far as recirculating goes, I start recirculating until about 12minutes after doughing in to let the grains settle. Seems to work well overall. For crush, given you are using a bag, I've been going with 1.030" using a cereal killer. Definitely get some flour but it converts very well. I honestly don't understand double crushing. If the mill setting doesn't change, what are you gaining with the second pass?

Cheers!
 
Noob_Brewer said:
For crush, given you are using a bag, I've been going with 1.030" using a cereal killer. Definitely get some flour but it converts very well. I honestly don't understand double crushing. If the mill setting doesn't change, what are you gaining with the second pass?

Cheers!
Click to expand...
That's a huge gap! I'm kidding, pretty sure you meant .030 but are used to gravity units :)

I think the 2nd pass maybe gets more accomplished if say the kernels run through 90 degrees or something vs. the first pass? But, yeah, I'd also rather have it correct the first time.
 

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