Blichmann 10 gallon Breweasy Questions

[PilotCline]

OK, I have my setup complete. Tomorrow is brew day. Anyone here use this yet and have any advice? A few questions that come to mind are how much temperature is lost in a 10 gallon batch when doughing in? I figure that I will be running around 13 gallons of water for this, so just trying to get the initial strike temp correct. Also, how the heck do you disconnect the hoses without making one hell of a mess? Thanks for any tips!

 

[30Bones]

Maybe try this thread dedicated to your system? Congrats, I am keeping an eye on these to see how they play out.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/blichmann-breweasy-419241/

 

[PilotCline]

I've been reading that and a few threads since day one. However, I have not seen the questions that I asked addressed in any of the threads. If anyone has any tips please let me know. I will start in the next few hours and was hoping to not have to figure it out all myself! The big question for me is still strike temp since I will have 6.5 more gallons in the boil kettle that will raise the temp too much if I end up too high.

 

[Braufessor]

I don't have a brew easy, but have been thinking about it and following the threads as well as I consider purchasing one. So, I am no expert, but have thought about the system.

I think some of it is going to simply be trial and error. The other thing you will have to account for (or figure out) is you will be losing some heat as well as you are recirculating...... your wort will cool as it travels through hoses back to the top vessel. So, the water in lower unit will need to warm enough to account for a few degrees of loss as it travels back to the top unit. Insulating the tubing at some point would help with this.

Probably too late now - as you have your brew lined up, but I would make my first several batches relatively simple in terms of ingredients so as not to waste a bunch of grain/hops on a "trial" run. I would also have a few lbs of DME on hand that I could add in the event of low efficiency that is going to take some getting used to as you dial in the system.

Let us know how it goes and what you learn.

 

[30Bones]

edit: double post

 

[30Bones]

Yeah from what I have read it's not as Ron Popeil aka "Set it and forget it" as most were assuming or as Blichmann intended it to be????

 

[The Pol]

Per the reviews in the other thread, no, it is not very hands off. It does require attention. The posts over there make it seem less user friendly, and less efficient (time, equipment, temp control) than any electric system I've seen.

 

[Helloworld]

I'm surprised there has been reported difficulty with this product. This review at B3 made it sound like a nice system:

http://morebeer.com/products/blichmann-breweasy-turnkey-kit-10-gallon.html#reviews

I was looking forward to purchasing one of these, but now I am skeptical.

 

[The Pol]

Maybe it's operator error?

 

[PilotCline]

OK, the system works great. This was my first all grain batch larger then 1 gallon. I heated the water to about 165 and doughed in. The brewmometer on the mash tun was calibrated with a lab thermometer. It showed 150 after lots of mixing. 10 minutes later it was still 150. After dough in I turned on the pump and heat. I set it for 157. It seemed that I hit a perfect guess and the 157 at the pump put the grain bed at 154. The temp on the brewmometer stayed pegged at 154 for the next 60 minutes. During the 60 minute mash I just sat there and watched in awe as the system did everything for me. The only thing that I had to do was adjust the ball valve on the tower(I have the full size tower BTW). It would seem that every so often the float ball on the autosparge would start bouncing and pulsing the pump. By turning the flow down to almost nothing for 10 seconds and bringing it back up it seemed to stop. This probably happened every 5-10 minutes. Raked the top 1/3 of the bed every 15 minutes. Now the thing that shocked me was I hit every number I aimed for except one. I had more boil off then I planned for. Started with 13.5 gallons and collected 11.2 gallons into the BK. After the boil I had 9.7 left in the BK. Next time I will up my water another gallon. My planned OG at 10 gallons was 1.050. I ended up with 9.5 at 1.054. According to beersmith my efficiency ended up at 70.2% I couldn't be happier with this system. So for a first use I am very pleased. Now I just need to learn how to truly use beersmith, but that is a rant for another thread. Good luck everyone who gets this. I think that it is a winner!

 

[The Pol]

Yup. Operator error.

 

[fsr_racer]

What would be a good estimate of your total time start to finish?

 

[PilotCline]

It was around 4-5 hours. I was not really paying that much attention to what time I started, so I am not 100% sure. For me the hardest part is clean up. In this new house I do not have a large laundry tub, so I am relegated to using the very small kitchen sink. PITA

 

[PilotCline]

Also I did a very thorough cleaning of all equipment before I began. That took a couple of hours, but as that was just because it was new and I wanted all manufacturing oils and what not cleaned off. Now that the initial cleaning has been performed I will not need to worry about that again. So I did not include that cleaning time in the above estimate. So that kind of added to my day, but I wasn't really paying too much attention to the clock.

 

[Pugalicious]

PilotCline, thanks for the info. I have a 10 gallon electric arriving in a couple weeks. I'm finding any and all info people are providing about this system to be super helpful. I'm planning to share my adventures as well, once they begin (which can't come soon enough!).

 

[Rmccall95]

Been following this thread for a while. Seeing the enthusiasm with which owners speak of the Blichmann BE setup, I want to ask some questions.
I am an all-grain brewer, doing mash in a 10-gallon Igloo cooler. Been brewing this way for about 4 years. No recirculation here, just letting it sit for an hour, trusting BeerSmith for making sure I hit mash temps with some degree of certainty. And no ability to precisely adjust my mash temp. Please enlighten me - what are the advantages to a recirculating system? I can easily see the ability to do step-mash, as well as a protein rest, if I decide to attempt that. What else? What advantage is there to the filtration of the wort that will obviously happen during the hour of recirculating?
I am wanting someone to convince me to either cobble together a recirculating system of some kind on my own, or go ahead and spring the $$ to invest in this system. It's just that the BE system is a sizable chunk of cash, and will require not only saving up for it, but strong justification for the expenditure.
I am thinking I will go for an electric setup, though I will have to have another 240v outlet installed in my utility/brew room.